Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Local Sunlight
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great work by covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from New Mexico, Georgia and Illinois.New Mexico FBIHOP has been live blogging the New Mexican legislative session. This year is a short 30 day session covering mostly budgetary issues. Matt is doing a great job keeping on top of what is going on, along with the live streaming action on New Mexico Independent this legislative session will be well accounted for. In the coming weeks we will be keeping track of the up and coming transparency initiatives in the state, so stay tuned.
Peach Pundit has a post about a former candidate for Governor’s PAC, which hasn’t filed a campaign report in a while, but had a great deal of money left over. The blogger wondered if they had to continue to file if they had any left over funds. Apparently they do not have to disclosure left over funds and can do whatever they wants with it.
Illinois’ The Quincy Pundit has a post about strange practices in the Quincy City Hall. The City Attorney sent out a letter to people in the community, on official letterhead, basically asking them to not vote for a particular candidate for Mayor because that candidate would fire him. Well, isn’t that special.
I also wanted to point out this awesome article by MediaShift highlighting great work by 3 local bloggers from around the country. I think this quote by blogger Chuck Welch sums up the local political bloggersphere perfectly.
“I think there are cases now where city council or city staff might be more cognizant that just because the newspaper reporter is not in the room it doesn’t mean the community is not going to learn about whatever it is they are doing.”
It is widely accepted that citizen journalists doesn’t replace investigative journalists, however, that doesn’t discount how important they are to keep track of local government. With the recent court decision transparency is more important than ever we need people willing to dig through disclosure data and an active political blogosphere is where we look to find them.
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 17
Today I want to send some appreciation over to New Mexico’s FBIHOP.Written by Matt Reichbach, FBIHOP keeps track of all news New Mexico related. Matt does a great job keeping on top of the issues of the day and relating them back to New Mexico. He also does some digging on his own from looking at earmarks to sharing ways to get muckraking resources. One of my favorite posts was this one about how the New Mexico State Legislature is set up to exclude citizen participation. When a system makes it harder for people, who are not employed full time as lobbyists, to have influence then how can regular people make an impact?
One way is to utilize the internet to expand your voice. Matt has definite beliefs and writes about them day in and day out and spends time getting himself heard. The great thing about the internet is that it makes room for regular people to influence government in their free time.
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Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from California, Hawaii, Delaware, Idaho, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico.
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Local Sunlight
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from South Dakota, Texas, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Delaware, and Washington.
(Continue reading…)
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Local Sunlight
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and Congressional political news.This week I have highlights from Louisiana, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas.
(Continue reading…)
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Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from Georgia, Missouri’s Turner Report, highlights state Senator Kevin Engler (Farmington) bill that would ban public officials from accepting meals, beverages, tickets to sporting events, and other forms of entertainment from lobbyists. This is a big lobbying reform bill, and Local Sunlight will be keeping tabs on its progress.
Right Michigan has an interview with State Representative Brian Cally (
Anything else you’d like to discuss or address with the bloggers at Right Michigan
Open government is good government. Perhaps the biggest weakness in state government today is that much of the decision making process is not open to public scrutiny. Take the budget debate for example. Many of the details on line item spending are kept secret, even from the legislature who is charged with approval of the budgets. I’ll bet the budget would be balanced without tax increases if every single line item of state government spending was published on www.michigan.gov.
Kudos to Rep. Cally for being open to the bloggers and good government.
Bloggers love/hate earmarks. My travels through the blogosphere have led me to find a lot of attention given to earmarks. So in order to keep Local Sunlight by being swallowed by earmark highlights I am introducing Earmark Corner. Gather the kids around the fire and lets see some earmarking from
Over in
New Mexico FBIHOP’s LP highlights Sen. Pete Domenici’s 25 billions “gift” to nuclear power companies in the omnibus energy bill.
That’s all I have for this week. Thanks local bloggers. Keep the Sunlight shining!
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Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from
In
New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan talks about how since Sen. Domenici, announced his retirement the Senate Ethics Committee has decided not to go to the next stage of the investigation into his involvement in the US Attorney General scandal.
South Dakota Politics blog has been talking about the farm bill recently and more specifically the $1.1 billion in subsidies that went to 172,801 dead people between 1999 through 2005. The discussion went into depth about whether these farmers were vampires or zombies. You be the judge.
In
In Arkansas, The Citizens Journal blog talks about how some Arkansas officials are being sued by two reporters for violating the state’s Freedom of Information Act by withholding information about which government computers were used to edit entries on Wikipedia. The complaint asks the officials to reveal what computers were being used to edit Wikipedia entries on Republican presidential candidates. It is an interesting case of Web 2.0 technology and how it affects transparency and FOIA.
That’s all I got this week. Thank local bloggers for shining the Sunlight.
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Local Sunlight
I have been keeping track of local blogs that do a great job of informing people about what is happening in Congress, state level, and local level politics. These blogs provide valuable information which I highlight each week to bring you news of transparency from around the country. Here is this week’s update on Sunlight in the states.
In
DemocracySpace.org has a great post on public officials that blog. Specifically of note is Nils Ribi, a city councilor in the state of
InThat’s all I can do this week. Keep letting the sunlight shine on local bloggers.
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Disclosure Santa Fe Style
I just can’t quite give it up.
Even on vacation, a story about disclosure catches my eye, In the New Mexican on Saturday, it’s noted that the Santa Fe City Council wants earlier and more complete campaign finance disclosure. If the Santa Fe City Council adopts recommendations made earlier this week by the city Ethics and Campaign Review Board, candidates would have to report earlier than ever before. Many believe it would help educate the early voters. And yes, another recommendation adopted by the City Council is to encourage electronic filing.
