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The Sunlight Foundation was founded in 2006 with the goal of using technology to enable citizens to learn more about what their elected representatives are doing, to help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and... [more]
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Transparency Begins at Home: Notes on What We're Up To
Mr. Lessig Comes to Washington
Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University law professor and world-renowned expert in intellectual property, is announcing that he's going to invest a significant amount of his time and energy confronting the pervasive and corruptive influence of money in our democracy. You may have heard of the recent Draft Lessig movement that almost convinced him to run for Congress. He ultimately decided not to make the run, but he's not retreating from the fight.
Today, at a lecture here in Washington, sponsored by Sunlight and Omidyar Network, he's launching the ChangeCongress project where he'll focus his academic interests on the issue of the systemic corruption of American democracy. Lessig will outline his hopes for ChangeCongress and how it will help citizens reclaim their democracy from the culture of corruption.
Lessig will give his lecture at 1:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) today at the National Press Club. We are very proud that Lessig recently joined Sunlight's advisory board, where he's helping us stay on the vanguard of using technology to promote a transparent and open government. If you can't make it to the lecture you can watch the Web cast.
Written by Ellen Miller on March 20, 2008 - 8:18am.
Read more: ChangeCongress | Lawrence Lessig | Omidyar Network | Sunlight Foundation | Sunshine Week (see all terms)
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The Sunlight Foundation supports, develops and deploys new Internet technologies to make information about Congress and the federal government more accessible to the American people. Through its projects and grant-making, Sunlight serves as a catalyst to create greater political transparency and to foster more openness and accountability in government.
Current Projects
PublicMarkup.org An experiment to open bills to online, public review.
Where Are They Now? Former Congressional Staffers head through the Revolving Door on to K Street.
Punch Clock Map: Putting congressional transparency on the map
Earmark Watch: Bringing Citizen Oversight to Congressional Spending
Wiki the Vote: Giving constituents the ability to report on candidates running for the House and Senate
A word from our Sponsor
Ongoing Projects
Realtime Investigations: Follow along as Bill and Anu detail their investigative reporting adventures.
LOUIS is the beginning of a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents.
The OpenHouse Project: Working to identify areas where Congress can open up and improve access to relevant and timely information.
OpenCongress: Bringing together official government information with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress.
Past Projects
Visualizing Earmarks: Select Visualizations of 2005 OMB Earmark Data.
Mashup Congress and Win:
And the Winner is... Unfluence! We received more than a dozen entries to Sunlight's first Web 2.0 Mashup Contest.
Congressional Web Site Investigation:Employing citizen oversight to find out if we are getting our money’s worth from congressional Web sites.
Today's Ethics Watch
Lawmakers Accused of Flouting Rules on Use of Staff: Democratic Reps. Jane Harman and Neil Abercrombie spent more than $2 million on their 2006 reelection campaigns but paid only $5,000 to campaign workers, according to campaign finance reports. (Washington Post)
NAM discloses member list: The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) disclosed certain member companies on Thursday after failing to win a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Hill)
Clinton introduces bill to post contractor violations on the Web: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has introduced a bill that would force contractors to self-report criminal actions or government overpayments to agency inspectors general under the threat of potential disbarment or suspension. The misconduct would then be made publicly available on a searchable Web site. (GovExec)
Rep. Abercrombie questions ethics of ethics bill handling: Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) is challenging actions by his Democratic leaders and plans to ask the ethics committee to determine whether House rules were broken during a recent ethics vote. (The Hill)
A futile walk down Coconut Road?: The House agreed Wednesday to ask the Justice Department to investigate the now infamous Coconut Road earmark, but don’t hold your breath waiting for indictments. (Politico)
Young, Jefferson quiet as Coconut Road earmark nears vote in House: Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and William Jefferson (D-La.) are keeping mum on whether they will vote for a bill that includes language calling on the Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate the notorious Coconut Road earmark when that measure comes to the House floor Wednesday. (The Hill)
Ethics Complaints Sheathed: Even though both Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently called for the ethics committee to investigate members of the other’s party — fighting words by any standard — neither took the next step of triggering an investigation, effectively pulling their punches. (Roll Call)
New disclosure reports lack clarity: The much-touted new lobbying disclosure reports are now available. But beware: They do little to make it easier to track the nation’s influence class. (Politico)
Lawmakers Want Hearing on Ties Between Sect, Defense Contracts: The Defense Department has contracted with three companies that are closely tied to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and some lawmakers want to know if money from those deals supported the sect, whose ranch was raided this month after allegations of child abuse. (Washington Post)
Pearce Made Millions on Sale: On Aug. 18, 2003, an executive from Key Energy Services testified during a House natural gas task force field hearing co-chaired by Reps. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and Heather Wilson (R-N.M.). Six weeks later, Key Energy closed a deal to buy the assets of Pearce’s oil services company, apparently for $12 million, more than double the value of the company that Pearce had claimed on his financial disclosure forms. (Roll Call)
Friends of the Earmark Make Themselves Heard: The hottest document on Capitol Hill is an anonymous six-page white paper that defends, of all things, earmarks -- those much-maligned home-state projects that lawmakers shoehorn into spending bills. (Washington Post)
[ More in the Archive ]
NAM discloses member list: The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) disclosed certain member companies on Thursday after failing to win a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Hill)
Clinton introduces bill to post contractor violations on the Web: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has introduced a bill that would force contractors to self-report criminal actions or government overpayments to agency inspectors general under the threat of potential disbarment or suspension. The misconduct would then be made publicly available on a searchable Web site. (GovExec)
Rep. Abercrombie questions ethics of ethics bill handling: Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) is challenging actions by his Democratic leaders and plans to ask the ethics committee to determine whether House rules were broken during a recent ethics vote. (The Hill)
A futile walk down Coconut Road?: The House agreed Wednesday to ask the Justice Department to investigate the now infamous Coconut Road earmark, but don’t hold your breath waiting for indictments. (Politico)
Young, Jefferson quiet as Coconut Road earmark nears vote in House: Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and William Jefferson (D-La.) are keeping mum on whether they will vote for a bill that includes language calling on the Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate the notorious Coconut Road earmark when that measure comes to the House floor Wednesday. (The Hill)
Ethics Complaints Sheathed: Even though both Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently called for the ethics committee to investigate members of the other’s party — fighting words by any standard — neither took the next step of triggering an investigation, effectively pulling their punches. (Roll Call)
New disclosure reports lack clarity: The much-touted new lobbying disclosure reports are now available. But beware: They do little to make it easier to track the nation’s influence class. (Politico)
Lawmakers Want Hearing on Ties Between Sect, Defense Contracts: The Defense Department has contracted with three companies that are closely tied to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and some lawmakers want to know if money from those deals supported the sect, whose ranch was raided this month after allegations of child abuse. (Washington Post)
Pearce Made Millions on Sale: On Aug. 18, 2003, an executive from Key Energy Services testified during a House natural gas task force field hearing co-chaired by Reps. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and Heather Wilson (R-N.M.). Six weeks later, Key Energy closed a deal to buy the assets of Pearce’s oil services company, apparently for $12 million, more than double the value of the company that Pearce had claimed on his financial disclosure forms. (Roll Call)
Friends of the Earmark Make Themselves Heard: The hottest document on Capitol Hill is an anonymous six-page white paper that defends, of all things, earmarks -- those much-maligned home-state projects that lawmakers shoehorn into spending bills. (Washington Post)
[ More in the Archive ]