Today, we are launching a new Web site, Party Time, a project to track parties thrown at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions as well as fund raising activities by all lawmakers running for Congress that happen all year round in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

The count of parties and events we’ve heard about scheduled for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions is now above 400-and counting. As we noted the other week, here, these convention parties are often sponsored by corporate interests such as Citi, Eli Lilly and Qwest, as well as powerhouse lobbying firms such as Patton Boggs. They continue despite new ethics reforms intended to rein in excesses of special interest bashes for members of Congress. Many of these party hosts are also sponsors of the conventions’ host committees, major donors to federal candidates and party committees and are also big spenders on federal lobbying.

So, for example:

AT&T is hosting more than a dozen parties at both conventions, most of them parties for different state delegations. The company is also underwriting both the Democratic and GOP Convention committees, and happens to be the #2 top donor to federal and candidates and parties since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. AT&T has spent more than $3 million on federal campaign contributions and lobbying combined in 2008 alone, 60% of which is directed to the GOP. It has also spent another $3.2 million on federal lobbying.

Qwest’s CEO, Ed Mueller, is hosting an event at the Denver Art Museum on Monday, August 25. The company is also giving the Democratic and GOP Convention host committees a total of some $12 million in direct and in-kind contributions. Qwest has given $682,000 to federal candidates and parties so far this election cycle, and spent $1.7 million on lobbying.

A long list of financial service powerhouses are sponsoring a “financial literacy brunch” at the Democratic National Convention, including Allstate, AEGON, Bank of America, Capitol One, Charles Schwab, Edward Jones, Fidelity, Genworth, MasterCard, Mutual of Omaha, Nationwide, Principal Financial Group, State Farm, NASDAQ, US Bank, Visa, Wachovia and Wells Fargo. These companies are major campaign contributors and lobbying forces in Washington.

(more…)

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Bush. Energy. Oil. Caribbean? These were the most frequently uttered words in Congress last week, brought to you courtesy of Sunlight’s latest Web site, Capitol Words. Now, you can have an at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available — a single word.

For every day that Congress is in session, Capitol Words displays the most frequently used word in the Congressional Record, dating back to the second session of the 106th Congress (January 20, 2000). (The Congressional Record, published daily, is a complete account of the floor proceedings of the House and Senate.)

We created Capitol Words to make it easy to know what issues Congress is addressing on a daily basis. Whether the congressional word of the day matches up to an issue, an action or the name of a member of Congress, Capitol Words provides a snapshot of the main topic addressed by Congress for any given day. By looking at the site’s calendar view, it’s obvious that ‘energy’ has been a hot topic in Congress this month.

Capitol Words is powered by LOUIS which scraped the Congressional Record on GPO Access. Our Labs also created an API so you can incorporate the word of the day in your applications.

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Earlier today, Lawrence Lessig spoke about Change Congress at the Free Press’ fourth annual National Conference for Media Reform, being held this year in Minneapolis. As always, Larry gave a killer speech. You can watch an earlier speech he gave at the National Press Club in March when he launched Change Congress here. Which reminds me…

Not to be missed: In the current edition of The Nation, Christopher Hayes, the magazine’s Washington editor, profiles Larry and Change Congress. It’s an extensive profile and a good read. (And I say this not only because he quotes me!) You don’t have to take my word for it, Cory Doctorow called the profile "fantastic." Hayes writes "playing David to various Goliaths (armed with a laptop as slingshot) is the defining narrative of Lessig’s career." If you’re a Lessig fan, it’s a must read.  If you’re unfamiliar with this bona fide and burgeoning cult hero, check it out…And join the revolution!

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I’m at my second of the mega conferences that are put on by the folks at Free Press - the National Conference on Media Reform. It’s an amazing gathering (this year in tornado beset Minneapolis) of experts, average citizens and advocates. It’s actually hard to pick which panel to attend — I’ve never seen so few people hanging out in the halls, which is certainly a tribute to the program itself. This year there are for more panels and experts on what’s happening online - sessions on social networking, citizen journalism, legislation 2.0. You can watch many of the sessions live.

Micah Sifry, our senior strategic consultant, is using his new Nokia phone/video tool to upload conversations we are having with some of the people here directly to Qik.com

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So what will this really mean? OpenSecret.org has the answer.

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Earlier this week, Daniel De Groot, writing at Open Left, linked to a fascinating 23-minute TED lecture given by technology futurist Ray Kurzweil. In the lecture, Kurzweil gives a mind-blowing display of how technological progress is happening exponentially and not linearly. De Groot says he hopes people will think about the impact this revolution will have on politics. This is worth watching

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On Tuesday just as the campaigns moved into the general election phase, the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) released an analysis of the fundraising being conducted by the Democrats and Republicans for their presidential conventions in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul. CFI estimates that corporate funds will pay for 80 percent of the $112 million combined price tag of the two conventions. How is that possible?!

CFI found that both parties are using local “host committees” to raise unlimited corporate contributions to pay for the conventions and the FEC and IRS decided that it’s OK for “host committees” to spearhead the fundraising, This created a huge loophole allowing corporate money to flow to the parties.

Federal regulators perceive the local host committees as nonpartisan charities whose interest were promoting the city and state, not selling access. A contribution to these organizations, they (read “naively”) believed, would not “present an issue of potential political corruption or appearance of corruption,” according to their thinking. In practice, the state and local political parties are extensively tied to the host committees. Documents obtained by CFI show that both parties’ host committees approached the corporations promising extensive access to lawmakers and party leaders as a result of large contributions.

And most interesting, this report is not based on FEC data, but on Freedom of Information requests to Governors and Mayors in Colorado and Minnesota.

Jim Drinkard, writing today on Businessweek.com, recalls how five years ago then FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith made a prediction: corporate sponsorship of political conventions would eventually be as common as it is for football bowl games. “I look forward to the day, by 2008, when Americans can turn on their TVs and watch the Nokia Democratic Convention, or the AT&T Republican National Convention,” Smith joked.

“That day has pretty much arrived,” Drinkard writes. Oh, Dinkard reports another kick in the pants. All contributions to the host committees are tax deductible.

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PolicyMap.com launched last month. It’s a very cool and fun site, especially if you’re into mashing up maps with demographics…And which public policy geek isn’t? It’s an online mapping tool that allows you to easily research market and demographic data by geography throughout the United States - down to a census tract level. It includes literally thousands of indicators related to demographics, real estate markets, money and income, education, crime and more.

The site is a project of The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a non-profit community development financial institution that works across the Mid-Atlantic region financing affordable housing, schools, businesses, supermarkets and other projects "that build wealth and opportunity for the people and places that need it the most." They say that they have long recognized the need for good data and analysis about neighborhoods. And through PolicyMap, they are generously sharing information they’ve collected over the past decade with the public.

Much of PolicyMap is free to the public. They offer subscription options for the features and proprietary data that they are not allowed to give for free. That part we don’t like so much, but hey, this is worth a look.

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Yesterday, Rep. Steve Pearce won the Republican primary for the Senate seat in New Mexico being vacated by Senator Pete Domenici.

CREW sez:

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM), is a third-term member of Congress representing the second district of New Mexico. Rep. Pearce’s ethics issues stem from his failure to properly report a transaction on his financial disclosure report and from trading legislative assistance for campaign contributions.

Read all the details here.

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Yesterday, Dan Christensen had a report in The Miami Herald about two Florida Congressmen who are also brothers, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, receiving $7,100 and $3,000 respectfully from a Maryland company weeks and days before they signed on to be cosponsors of a bill prized by the company — the Hanger Orthopedic Group (HOG), a Bethesda, Md., -based prosthetics company, is pushing the Group Health Plan Prosthetics Parity Act (H.R. 5615). The bill would broaden insurance coverage for its products (artificial limbs), putting them on par with other medical coverage. Christensen reports that the manufacturing of prosthetics is a $2.5 billion industry, but private insurance companies currently cap the benefits. According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ Influence and Lobbying database, HOG has spent $70,000 so far in 2008 lobbying Congress, and $130,000 since last summer on this issue, according to The Herald.

Christensen writes that the Diaz-Balarts are curious sponsors since they have not traditionally championed health care issues in Congress, and neither is on the committee where the bill was referred. He did mention that the company was in need of Republican cosponsors, and one of the brothers had an interest in helping children amputees in the Ukraine. Oh, and both brothers are also facing tough reelection races which probably means they need to raise more money than they ever have before. A campaign spokesperson for both brothers said there was no connection between the campaign contributions and their support of the bill.

Hat Tip: War and Piece blog.

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