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 Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Jersey, Maryland, and Louisiana.
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This week I have highlights from Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Hawaii and Louisiana.

In Pennsylvania, Above Average Jane has a great post summarizing what bills passed State Legislature during the week.

In Mississippi, Y’all Politics posts about ethics reform legislation that passed the state legislature and is on its way to be signed by the governor. This bill would increase the number of persons who must file economic interest disclosure forms, would create more enforcement of open-meeting laws and would make public-record law improvements.

In Hawaii, Poinography has a follow-up to a previous post about how citizens cannot find voting information sorted by legislator. In response, he wrote a "script to download all of the bill status pages and to pull out the voting information for each legislator." Inquirers can find a link in the fifth paragraph of the above post to download the data. This is great work. Thanks Poinography!

In Louisiana, The Daily Kingfish has a great post highlighting the useful features of GovTrack and how it allows citizens keep track of their Congressional delegations.

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This week I have highlights from Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Florida and Minnesota.

Oregon’s Earmark Blog posts a CRS report about the Executive Order restricting state agencies from considering earmarks not found in the historical texts of bills. Another example of how useful and informative CRS reports are.

S.D. Watch posted a press release from South Dakota’s Secretary of State Chris Nelson. The press release states that the secretary of state has updated their website to include a free, searchable database of corporate records.

South Texas Chisme posted about how the Harris County government is looking into closing a loophole that allows high ranking officials to not include personal financial information that could cause a conflict of interest.

In Louisiana, Between the Lines, has a post on new ethics reform legislation going through the state senate. The legislation would limit gifts and meals from lobbyists and is being opposed by many lawmakers because it was cause hardship to their legislative life.

KentuckyPolitics.org highlights the Kentucky Senate passing legislation that would require Section 527 groups to disclose their contributions.

Florida’s The Buzz, highlights how the Florida House is now wireless. “Anyone with a wireless-capable computer can pick up a signal now in committee rooms, public areas, etc. No registration is necessary, says Jill Chamberlin, spokeswoman for House Speaker Marco Rubio.” Kudos to you Florida House.

In Minnesota, MinnPost, is using Sunlight’s new Lawmaker Profiler. The Profiler allows you to find campaign contributions, earmarks, federal contracts, and lobbyist expenditures that are associated with a member of Congress. It is a great tool for any blogger or news organization who wants a new innovative way to see congressional data.

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This week I have highlights from Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Washington.

In Idaho, IdaBlue, has a new blog roll category, “legiblogs”, this lists all the state legislators that have blogs (or blogislators). There are four blogs currently listed and they all seemed to be updated regularly. It’s great to see elected officials considering blogging as a way to communicate with their constituents.

In Louisiana, Blagueur, highlights a Washington Post article talking about Rep. Richard H. Baker who is in talks to become president of a hedge fund lobby. Also in Louisiana, In the Loop highlights the historic state house organizational session. This included a day long briefing on Louisiana’s Code of Governmental Ethics. This was meant to lead the State Reps through the ethics code and educated them about the requirements for financial disclosure and lobbyist regulation. This was a great opportunity to learn Louisiana’s Ethics Code before the special sessions in February on ethics reform.

In Missouri, the Turner Report, talks about how State Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst introduced bill HB 1548, which, he admitted was written by a lobbyist. This bill would exempt sales tax on purchases of “equipment, machinery, materials, supplies, fixtures, and shoes used in the sport of bowling.” A little more research shows that this bill was previously submitted last year by Rep. Ron Richard, the House Speaker-elect, who happens to own a chain of bowling alleys. How convenient.

In Nebraska, Smith Watch, has a very interesting summary of Rep. Adrian Smith’s first year in Congress. Complete with voting summary and some analysis of who gave him money and how often he voted in their favor.

In New Mexico, LP at New Mexico FBIHOP, highlights the very cool The Santa Fe Reporter’s Muckraker’s Guide to New Mexico. The guide has links to campaign finance, earmark, crime, and various other information any good muckraker would want.

In Washington, Olympia Time, highlights how the state legislature now has RSS feeds for bills which will allow people to subscribe to bills and track changes.

Earmark Corner

The usual ruckus around earmarks has slowed to a disgruntled murmur with people mostly focusing on the election. I did want to highlight a great summary done by Smith Watch on Rep. Adrian’s Smith earmark requests and his opinion on the status of earmarking.

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