SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION LAUNCHES CONGRESSIONAL SPOUSE PROJECT

CITIZEN JOURNALISTS WANTED FOR DISTRIBUTED RESEARCH

October 6, 2006

Contact: Gabriela Schneider 202-742-1520 ext 236

Washington, DC -- The Sunlight Foundation today launched a new distributed reporting project that lets online citizen journalists investigate and record research on a member of the House of Representatives in just three minutes. “It’s time to find out how many Members of Congress are channeling campaign contributions into their pockets by paying their spouse,” said Bill Allison, Sunlight’s director of investigative projects. “It could take a reporter weeks to pore through all the filings for 435 Members of the House, but by engaging volunteer citizen journalists online, we expect to have the answer in a matter of days.” Some high profile members who’ve had family members on their campaign payroll in the past include former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas; Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif.; and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif. Now citizen journalists can participate in a House-wide research project to identify all members who engage in the practice. Using a simple, easy-to-use tool developed by Sunlight Labs (http://www.sunlightlabs.com/research/familybusiness/index.php), citizen journalists can identify spouses of members of Congress, search campaign expenditures to see if they’re on political payrolls, record the information, and see it tabulated in a running total. The Sunlight Foundation will verify all information with the campaigns themselves. Members who hire spouses to work on their campaigns pay them from the campaign contributions they raise from special interests—in effect, allowing their political fundraising to add to their personal income. The practice is not illegal provided that campaigns pay fair market value for a spouse’s services. The Congressional Spouse Project is the first installment of a series of distributed research projects that will harness the talents and skills of members of the public to provide greater citizen oversight of Congress. Future projects will investigate Senate spouses who work for campaigns, children of members who work for political campaigns, relatives of members who work for political action committees and for fundraising firms, and relatives of members who are registered to lobby Congress. The Congressional Spouse Project is also an attempt to begin developing Web-based tools that allow individuals to collect and analyze information from multiple sources, record it consistently so that it can be compared to other data, and preserved in an online archive that’s easily accessible for future researchers. Sunlight Labs is the technology development segment of the Sunlight Foundation. Founded in January, 2006, the mission of the Sunlight Foundation is to strengthen the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents. Sunlight puts information and tools in citizens’ hands so they can learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing. Our ultimate goal of full transparency by Congress, its Members and staff will help reduce corruption, ensure greater accountability, and foster public trust in this vital institution of democracy. ###