About The Foundation
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]
Join Our Mailing List:
Sunlight's RSS feeds:
Sunlight's Project feeds:
Help Spread Sunlight:
We're Social:
Sunlight's Reform Agenda
Sunlight has updated and refined our legislative priorities in order to generate greater change and a more transparent Congress.
[Full Memo | Top Priorities]
Search our Archives
User login
Federal Spending
Two House Appropriations Bills List Earmarks
Via National Journal's CongressDaily (subscription only) comes word that the Appropriations Committee has released lists of earmarks along with two bills (I've appended them to this post):
The House Appropriations Committee today took its first official steps to disclose pet projects in FY08 spending bills, revisiting the Interior-Environment and Financial Services measures to add the earmarks in advance of floor action next week. Now that Republicans got their wish, they are seeing the fruits of their efforts up close. Their own projects are being squeezed both by House Appropriations Chairman Obey's decree of a 50 percent total reduction in earmarked projects as well as being on the receiving end of a 60-40 split between the majority and minority they have not experienced in a dozen years.
Written by Bill Allison on June 21, 2007 - 3:02pm.
Read more: Disclosure | Earmarks | Federal Spending | House Approrpriations Committee | Online Transparency (see all terms)
Update on Family Business: Moving Toward Phase Two
We've gotten some great feedback on planning the next round of our Congressional Family Business investigation, both from inside the office, from some of the folks who made the first round such a success, and from some smart observers (thanks to David Cohn for posting that at Digg!).
We're starting to design phase two now (what this means in practice is that I get to keep bothering our Sunlight Labs geniuses with questions that begin with cringe-inducing phrases like, "How quickly could you..." or "How hard would it be to..." or "Would it be possible to..."). I'm really excited about round two; and even though we won't be able to incorporate all the excellent suggestions we've gotten right away, this step will include some of your ideas while also giving us the building blocks to do some never-before-seen investigations, like figuring out whether spouses work for companies or organizations that have gotten federal contracts or grants (something our friends at OMB Watch have made possible through FedSpending.org), or for firms that lobby or hire lobbyists to influence Congress.
Written by Bill Allison on October 19, 2006 - 10:28am.
Read more: Congressional Families | Distributed reporting | Family Business | Federal Spending | Lobbyists (see all terms)
Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Becomes Law
I was lucky enough to be invited to the bill signing ceremony for S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, at the Old Executive Office Building this morning. President Bush's remarks are here; Glenn Reynolds has a post here; and Mark Tapscott previewed the event this morning. It was nice to meet the two of them in the flesh, as well as a fair number of the folks who are part of the Exposing Earmarks coalition.
Written by Bill Allison on September 26, 2006 - 10:37am.
Read more: Federal Contracting | Federal Grants | Federal Spending | Open Government | S. 2590 (see all terms)
Current Projects
Fortune 535 Running the numbers on congressional wealth
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
Access to contractor misconduct database restricted in Senate bill: A bill mandating the creation of a federal contractor misconduct database is one step closer to becoming law, but a lack of support in the Senate has forced Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., its primary sponsor, to limit access only to government officials. (GovExec)
Ex-CIA Official Indicted Over Agency Job for Mistress: A federal grand jury has accused a former top CIA official of pulling strings to get a high-level CIA job for his mistress, as part of a new indictment against the official in an existing corruption case. (Washington Post)
House panel wants greater oversight of ‘shared employees’: A House panel agreed Wednesday that greater oversight of staffers who work for more than one member is needed along with a set of guidelines to prevent future cases of fraud from occurring in offices. (The Hill)
Another ‘Shared’ Aide Investigated: House Inspector General James Cornell told a House committee on Wednesday that his office has uncovered a second “shared employee” who appears to have been improperly billing Member offices for expenses. (Roll Call)
Former CIA official indicted anew in bribery case: A new indictment of a former top CIA official alleges that he received bribes in the form of "sexual companionship" from a friend seeking an edge in landing multimillion-dollar contracts from the agency. (AP)
‘Shared’ Staffers Draw Scrutiny: The House Inspector General and Chief Administrative Officer want tighter supervision of the financial and technical staffers who work for multiple Congressional offices following a scandal in which a “shared employee” was caught embezzling money from Member office accounts. (Roll Call)
Panel nixes Bush order on earmarks: House Democrats have escalated their shoving match with the White House over so-called “air-dropped” earmarks. (The Hill)
Boehner Remains Defiant Over Earmark Web Site: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) continues to defy an order to take down his Web site touting earmark reform — and the House Administration Committee has yet to push back on the issue. (Roll Call)
For Campaign Contributions by the Wheelbarrow, the Back Door Is Open: Surely a presidential contest between such well-known campaign finance reformers as Barack Obama and John McCain will be free of big donations from fat cats, right? Not really. (Washington Post)
Not All Earmarks Are Paid in Full, and a Senator Wants to Know Why: In early 2005, the office of Senator Ben Nelson received a curious phone call. Officials from the University of Nebraska told him that they had not received all of a $1 million medical research earmark he had secured for them. The Department of Defense, the agency controlling the money, was withholding 12 percent of the total to oversee the project. (New York Times)
The Limits and Promise of Interactive Politics Online: Everything moves so fast in the world of online politics -- the new online donors! the new Web videos! the new anti-Obama site or pro-McCain site! -- that introspection is often lacking. (Washington Post)
[ More in the Archive ]
Ex-CIA Official Indicted Over Agency Job for Mistress: A federal grand jury has accused a former top CIA official of pulling strings to get a high-level CIA job for his mistress, as part of a new indictment against the official in an existing corruption case. (Washington Post)
House panel wants greater oversight of ‘shared employees’: A House panel agreed Wednesday that greater oversight of staffers who work for more than one member is needed along with a set of guidelines to prevent future cases of fraud from occurring in offices. (The Hill)
Another ‘Shared’ Aide Investigated: House Inspector General James Cornell told a House committee on Wednesday that his office has uncovered a second “shared employee” who appears to have been improperly billing Member offices for expenses. (Roll Call)
Former CIA official indicted anew in bribery case: A new indictment of a former top CIA official alleges that he received bribes in the form of "sexual companionship" from a friend seeking an edge in landing multimillion-dollar contracts from the agency. (AP)
‘Shared’ Staffers Draw Scrutiny: The House Inspector General and Chief Administrative Officer want tighter supervision of the financial and technical staffers who work for multiple Congressional offices following a scandal in which a “shared employee” was caught embezzling money from Member office accounts. (Roll Call)
Panel nixes Bush order on earmarks: House Democrats have escalated their shoving match with the White House over so-called “air-dropped” earmarks. (The Hill)
Boehner Remains Defiant Over Earmark Web Site: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) continues to defy an order to take down his Web site touting earmark reform — and the House Administration Committee has yet to push back on the issue. (Roll Call)
For Campaign Contributions by the Wheelbarrow, the Back Door Is Open: Surely a presidential contest between such well-known campaign finance reformers as Barack Obama and John McCain will be free of big donations from fat cats, right? Not really. (Washington Post)
Not All Earmarks Are Paid in Full, and a Senator Wants to Know Why: In early 2005, the office of Senator Ben Nelson received a curious phone call. Officials from the University of Nebraska told him that they had not received all of a $1 million medical research earmark he had secured for them. The Department of Defense, the agency controlling the money, was withholding 12 percent of the total to oversee the project. (New York Times)
The Limits and Promise of Interactive Politics Online: Everything moves so fast in the world of online politics -- the new online donors! the new Web videos! the new anti-Obama site or pro-McCain site! -- that introspection is often lacking. (Washington Post)
[ More in the Archive ]