Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Virginia Thomas' paperless, pixel-less trail

We'd love to look closer at Liberty Consulting, the new firm started by Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that Politico reported on today. But as of now (as Politico notes), the consultancy has not registered as a lobbying firm or disclosed any clients, though the firm says it "gives voice to principled citizens and the tea party movement in the halls of Congress through governmental affairs efforts," and whose founder claims, according to Politico, that she "has met with nearly half of the 99 GOP freshmen in the House and Senate." Whether those meetings were on behalf of clients, or occurred before or after those freshmen were elected, is not clear. 

Fed says mortgage disclosure rules up to new consumer agency

Improving mortgage disclosures for consumers will have to wait until July when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) comes into business, the Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday.

New lobbying tracker makes it easier to follow the revolving door

Financial interests hiring lobbyists

Even as the new House GOP majority is taking aim at the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by pulling at the agencies’ purse strings, financial interests continue to jockey for favor, hiring key lobbying firms.

Egypt's Washington lobby helped country's military and U.S. defense firms

At the Atlantic, Chris Good identifies some of the U.S. lobbyists who have registered to work for the Egyptian government. Filings required by the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and digitized and made searchable by Sunlight's joint project with ProPublica, the Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker, show that among foreign governments, Egypt has been one of the most prolific spenders. FARA filings show that the U.S.-Egyptian bilateral relation benefits American military contractors. The United States ships aid dollars to the Egyptian government, which in turn buys pricey items from American contractors, with deals often arranged with the help of U.S. lobbyists--who sometimes represent both the seller and the buyer. That's what PLM Group, a joint venture of the Podesta Group and the Livingston Group, did, as we reported with ProPublica in our initial release:

Sen. Scott Brown's campaign requests FEC approval to buy his book

Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachussetts wants to thank his campaign donors with a signed copy of his yet to be released autobiography. And in order to do so, he's asked the Federal Election Commission to allow him to buy several thousand of copies of his own book using his campaign committee's funds. 

Wall Street Journal sues for access to Medicare records

The Wall Street Journal announced today that it's suing for access to data on payments that doctors receive from Medicare, which has been exempt from public disclosure thanks to a 1979 court case won by the American Medical Association. The Journal argues that absent data on the payments, it's impossible for journalists or members of the public to tell which doctors are billing the system improperly. "It's time to overturn an injunction that, for decades, has allowed some doctors to defraud Medicare free from public scrutiny," Mark Jackson, the counsel for Dow Jones, the Journal's immediate parent, said. 

Follow the State of the Union with Sunlight Live

When President Barack Obama makes his second State of the Union address tonight at 9 p.m. ET, tune into sunlightlive.com to watch the speech with real-time reporting and context. Using our award-winning Sunlight Live platform, we'll be live blogging the president's speech and the responses by Reps. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn.

Last Super PAC of 2010 started by wife of congressional challenger

We missed it between Christmas and New Years, but Heartland Revolution registered as an independent expenditure only committee with the Federal Election Commission. Such committees, also known as Super PACs, can take contributions in any amount from any source, and spend that money influencing federal elections.

New tool tracks new lobbyists and their clients

After the Nov. 2, 2010 election, lobbyists filed more than 350 new registration forms, disclosing their hiring by clients seeking to influence everything from the federal budget to Kyrgyz government negotiations with the United States to supply jet fuel to airbases in Manas, Kyrgyzstan and Bagram, Afghanistan. 

Some tools that might help the Pajamas Media's Transparency Project

Roger L. Simon, writing at Pajamas Media, announces a new transparency project, soliciting suggestions from readers on what the blogosphere-bloomed news organization should dig into. I wouldn't presume to play assigning editor for the effort, but hope I can help by pointing to some resources (full disclosure--many, but not all, are built by or supported by the Sunlight Foundation) that might help Pajamas Media readers do some digging on their own and get the ball the rolling.

Diplomats not the only ones aiding Boeing business abroad

Over the weekend the New York Times ran a story highlighting the diplomatic relations used to help Boeing acquire business in foreign nations, but the informal and potentially inappropriate dealings between diplomats and foreign leaders done for Boeing's benefit is not the only thing the U.S. government  does to help the company's bottom line.

Looking back at 2010

Hard to believe that a year that began with the Reporting Team analyzing and critiquing federal data released under the administration's Open Government Initiative ended with our pursuit of political organizations that do not disclose campaign donors. In between, we continued to publish the only resource for tracking congressional campaign fundraising, Party Time, updated our Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker, delved into Recovery.gov data and earmark disclosures, and, with the help of our friends at the Center for Public Integrity, identified dozens of high value federal data sets that government agencies have not released.

Information scarce on bids for failed banks

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is making less information available to the public about how it is dealing with the rising number of bank failures in 2010. Over the last year, the agency has failed to post a complete list of bids on 41 percent of the deals it makes with other banks to take over failing institutions--and what information it does provide is more limited than before.