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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Resources for Your Research
Jane Hamsher brought to my attention this morning a contest being run over at Daily Kos to find out why 50 Democrats are resisting their constituents’ support for health care reform. She is asking for folks to look at the lawmakers — who they get money from, how they vote, what amendments they offer as a way to explain and other things too, perhaps as a way to explan, who is the most beholden to the special interests who are fighting various elements of the health care reform plan.
This is a terrific idea and I thought it would be really helpful to offer up the number of Sunlight created or sponsored databases to help with the research.
Here’s a bunch of places to start:
Open Congress (voting records, bill and amendment sponsorship)
Open Secrets (campaign finance, campaign expenditure, lobbying, revolving door, personal financial disclosure information)
Party Time (fundraisers)
MAPLight (connections between votes and campaign contributions)
Taxpayers for Common Sense (sponsors of earmarks)
Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker (lobbyists lobbying on behalf of foreign entities, searchable by MOC)
LOUISdb (Congressional Record, Federal Register, Congressional Hearings and Reports, Bills and Resolutions)
Capitol Words (most frequently spoken word by legislator)
LittleSis (an involuntary Facebook for the well-connected)
FedSpending (government contracts. Search by district)
Metavid (video clips of members of Congress)
Good as these resources are, Sunlight would really like to make it even easier for you to do this kind of research so we have underway an effort to create a repository of all the information in that list above (and more!) so that you can seamlessly search through all these data bases. (Think a virtual ‘one-click’ search). It’s going to take a while before it’s a reality but we are hard at work on it.
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Digital Democracy Contest
Today we’re excited to launch the Digital Democracy Contest — a free web-based game for high school social studies classes.
Students learn how to use OpenSecrets.org and OpenCongress.org. Then they compete in teams to answer questions like:
- How much money did the pharmaceutical industry contribute to Congressional candidates since 1990? [Answer: $94,601,549]
- How often does Senator Hagan vote with her party? [Answer: 87%]
- Which Representative sponsored H.J.Res.5? [Answer: Serrano]
Once students learn how to investigate Congress they reflect upon technology’s influence on government using this worksheet (pdf). If the teacher wishes, students can then complete original research tasks using Transparency Corps. Once vetted by other students this research will go on the OpenCongress wiki.
The Sunlight Foundation works to make our government more transparent, but putting government data online is just the first step. Citizens must be able to use this data. Projects like the Digital Democracy Contest help close the loop.
The Digital Democracy Contest was created by the students behind GNIC.org in partnership with the Sunlight Foundation. The contest is funded by a MacArthur Young Innovator award and based upon a college contest.
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And The Winners Are…
Judging our first Apps for America contest was difficult: 40+ solid, open source applications that solidly moved the ball forward in terms of opening government and providing new methods of communicating to our legislative branch.
The entries ranged from highly technical Bayesian prediction tools like Words Vote, to the super simple and super useful GovPix. Every entry presented was open source and and amazing commitment on behalf of the development community to open their government. Every single entrant was amazing and I wish we could give prizes to everyone.
But we can’t. The rules say there’s 1 prize for first place, 1 prize for second place, 4 third place prizes and 10 honorable mentions prizes. Which gives us 16 total prizes to give away.
Scoring was done with our own judging application– if you could call it that. It was just a lightweight Django application that showed each application in an iframe, and then asked each judge to rate the app according to 5 categories. Later on, I’ll run down some interesting stats from the 45 different applications, but for now, I’m sure many of you who’ve waited and waited want to see who has won.
First Place for $15,000
Filibusted: “Hold senators accountable for blocking legislation.”
Second Place for $5,000
Legistalker: “The latest online activity of Congress Members.”
Third Place for $1,000 (4)
Honorable Mentions for $100 (10)
RepresentedBy
Capital Calls
iLegislator
TweetCongress
Congress Bills
LocalPolitics.in
Words Vote.
Expendicus
Call Congress
Hear Me Say ThisThis was a great start. For those of you who won, congratulations. For those of you who didn’t– thank you for participating. The good news is, you’ll have another shot at this soon as this will not be the last of Apps for America. Thanks to all who participated, and we hope you continue to build and support products to open up our government!
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YouTube Citizen Journalism Challenge!
YouTube is offering a $10,000 fellowship with the Pulitzer Center for “high-quality video pieces focused on stories that are not usually covered by the traditional media.” The first round is asking people to make a 3 minute video highlighting a person in your community. They are taking submissions til October 5th.
This is a great opportunity for citizens to go out into their communities and report on what is really important and how individuals are making a difference. There is a lot of news to be found especially when it comes to corruption in politics. The best place to hold elected officials accountable is in your own backyard. So get to muckraking super sleuths.
Get your cameras ready and good luck!
h/t to PJnet.org
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OpenSecrets.org Citizen Journalism Awards
Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics are partnering with Helium to hold a contest for citizen journalists who can best write about the influence of money in US politics and elections. Here’s the run-down from CRP:
The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) has partnered with Helium to bring you the OpenSecrets.org Citizen Journalism Awards. Compete by writing unique, compelling articles about money’s influence on US elections and public policy. You could be named the next OpenSecrets.org Citizen Journalist and win a cash prize.
The assignment: CRP will feature one new title each month. Follow CRP’s article guidelines, research the featured topic using OpenSecrets.org and other resources and write a compelling article for your chance to win.
The awards: CRP will pick one winning article each month. The winning writer will receive an OpenSecrets.org Citizen Journalism Award and a $100 cash prize from CRP.
CRP will also feature the winning articles on its website and in its email newsletters, which reach thousands of journalists, activists, academics and citizens.
Get started
Pick a title: See CRP’s current contest title below. You can also visit CRP’s partner page at Helium to write to more (noncontest) titles.
Research: OpenSecrets.org is an unparalleled resource for researching the influence of industries and interests in U.S. politics, and on issues that affect all our lives. The more you draw on OpenSecrets.org in your article, the better. Please attribute all data and statistics and provide URLs, whether you find the information on OpenSecrets.org or elsewhere. Expressing your opinion is fine, but please back it up with facts.
Write: Write a unique, well-researched article in 750 words or less. You can submit articles to this contest until noon on Friday, August 8. CRP’s staff will begin reviewing essays on August 5 from the top articles rated by the Helium community. Selection will be based on the most compelling essay and the winner will be the essay that brings the freshest insight on the issue presented.
Submit: File your article at Helium.com, where other Helium users will be able to read and rate it. CRP will pick the contest’s winner from among the top-rated articles.
Do not pass go. Proceed directly to OpenSecrets.org to enter the contest and collect your $100. The current contest topic is:
How have campaign contributions and lobbying efforts influenced policy on an issue you care about?
Submissions are due by August 8th.
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Enter our Sunshine Week Mashup Contest!
Next week (March 11-17) is Sunshine Week, during which journalists, activists, and bloggers raise awareness about the importance of open government and advocate for more transparency.
To celebrate, we are hosting a contest! We will give a $2,000 prize for the best “Web 2.0 Mashup” (wikipedia) that displays information about Congress:
Our judges–Esther Dyson, Jimmy Wales, and Craig Newmark–will select the winning mashup based on creativity and how effectively it displays Congressional information.
We are not looking for something complicated — simplicity is often the best transparency tool. Entries should have been created in the last six months.
The deadline for entries is April 15.
Confused? Wondering what a mashup is? A mashup is a website or web application that combines content from more than one source. You’ve probably seen a mashup even if you don’t realize it. Sunlight Labs made this mashup last year, taking an excel spreadsheet of earmarks in the Labor, Health and Human Service BILL and “mashing them” onto Google maps so that people could locate earmarks designated for their zip code:
Hundreds of citizens used that mashup to learn more about earmarking in Congress.
