I thought it might be useful to take stock of how much attention the new databases released by Center for Responsive Politics (Congressional Personal Financial Disclosure and Travel) and OMB Watch (Government Grants and Contracts) attracted last week. 

From Massie Ritsch at CRP:

In the first six days that the new personal finances and travel databases were online OpenSecrets.org logged nearly 140,000 unique visitors (though some may have visited over multiple days). OS logged more than 1.6 million page views and more than 7 million hits in that time.

Last week, the Personal Financial Disclosure database was within our top 5 most popular features. The travel site was within the top 20, which is still impressive measured against campaign finance features that have been mainstays of the website for years.

Oct. 10, the day we unveiled these databases, and Oct. 11 were the 7^th and 8^th busiest days ever on OpenSecrets.org, based on unique visitors. The site has not experienced such traffic since just days before the 2004 presidential election. Our peak last week was Wednesday, Oct. 11: 28,592 unique visitors, 348,443 page views and 1,631,576 hits.

 From Gary Bass at OMB Watch:

From last Tuesday through Sunday, we had 20,502 visits (or 207,436 page views, if you like big numbers — and over 900,000 hits if for some reason you like to monitor hits). Total bandwidth over that period has been 18.4 GB.  (By comparison, OMBW’s site, which gets an average of 45,000 monthly visitors, peaked at 15.3 GB for the month of August.) 

There are at least 300 web links referring people to FedSpending.org, many of them from blogs.  Some of the top referring sites are Gov Exec, Instapundit, MetaFilter, TPM Muckraker, Captains Quarters, and Wash Post.

And one of Sunlight’s other major projects - Congresspedia, our joint effort with Center for Media and Democracy - is also posting some new big numbers:

From Conor Kenny, editor of Congresspedia:

 
WOW! SourceWatch hit 75,000 visitors yesterday (280,00 pages served). It’s impossible to separate the statistics for SourceWatch and Congresspedia (since Congresspedia is built on top of the SourceWatch wiki) , but either way it’s a good thing. This is up from about 28,000 visitors per day in the month before Congresspedia debuted.

I think this is a record, but brace yourselves: 56,000 on Saturday, 66,000 on Sunday, and 75,000 yesterday.

Folks, this is just the beginning. 

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Don’t look now, but someone in Washington has apparently decided that it’s not fair for Sen. Ted Stevens and Sen. Robert Byrd to hog all pork-hiding, dislcosure-obstructing glory. Rebecca Carr reports that, no sooner were Stevens and Byrd outed for blocking the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn and Sen. Barack Obama, a new anonymous Senator has placed a hold on the bill.

Mark Tapscott writes,

Looks to me like opponents of Coburn-Obama have decided to see how long the measure’s supporters in the Blogosphere can keep up the campaign of unmasking anonymous holders. There are more than 75 senators who are not co-sponsors of the bill.

If even a dozen or 15 of them agree to place successive anonymous holds after each new holder is unmasked - assuming they are - they could easily exhaust the legislative calendar and perhaps also the Blogosphere, thus effectively blocking consideration of the bill.

And don’t think there aren’t at least that many senators from both parties who would be more than happy to play a role in such a scenario.

That’s undoubtedly true, and a reminder that much of what happens in the Senate occurs not in open hearing or floor debate, but in the cloakrooms and backrooms away from public scrutiny.

Update: I’m hearing that Ted Stevens has put his own hold back on.

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Lots of activity in Congress about issues that Sunlight cares about.

First, the bill sponsored by Senator Tom Coburn and Senator Barack Obama that would create an online searchable database for government grants and contracts is scheduled for mark-up today. According to CQ Reports, Sen. Tom Coburn said that the bottom line is: "Why shouldn’t Americans know where their money is being spent?"

We couldn’t agree more. We’re particularly excited about this bipartisan legislative initiative because we have had a sneak preview at the grants and contracts database that OMB Watch is preparing to release in the early fall. It’s a wow — an information powerhouse. (Yes, I feel badly about mentioning it here and not giving you a link to it, but I guess it’s OK to tease our readers once in a while.) When I saw it, I thought of a hundred ways to find out more about who’s getting how much money from government, and for what projects, than I ever thought was possible. OMB Watch’s team has done an amazing job in putting it together. They are looking for some citizen beta-testers, so if you’re interested let me know and I will pass your name along to them. This database will be live in six weeks or so.

Maybe our enthusiasm for the Coburn bill comes from the fact that if it passed, OMB Watch wouldn’t have to create its database (or continue to maintain it). Sunlight funded this project. So not only would an official government database save Sunlight some of its grant dollars, but it would likely save citizens a whole lot more money because once folks got a handle on the spending there will likely be alot of questions about what government is spending taxpayer dollars on. Anyway, it seems to me that making information about how our government spends its money ought to be the government’s job, not the job of nonprofits. Today’s Washington Post story on waste and fraud in Homeland Security contracts should be sufficient to illustrate why this is important information that every citizen should have.

Meanwhile, back in Congress, Rep. John Boehner, House Majority Leader, announced that he will offer a rules change in the fall that will include more disclosure for earmarks in appropriation, authorization and tax bills. Looks like this is going to move quickly since Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, and Rep. Boehner, and Rep. David Dreier (according to BNA’s Money & Politics Report) said they are committed to "extending these reforms to all committees and implementing them during the current session of Congress, before any spending or tax bill for the upcoming fiscal year goes to the president’s desk." No more real details on this yet, but this is certainly a good move.

And it’s probably a move that signals that the so-called ethics reform bill, still stalled in Congress, is in its final death throes. That is not good news. Though it is predictable.

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