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CAR Training - visualizations
By Bill Allison Oct 23, 2009 7:02 p.m.Sign up for a many eyes account by clicking here: Many Eyes Registration.
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Entering digital age an expensive proposition for GOP
By Luke Rosiak Oct 23, 2009 6:54 p.m.The Republican National Committee shelled out $1.4 million dollars over the last six months for Web sites and services, much of which was spent on GOP.com, the party's major Web presence that was unveiled this month, new Federal Election Commission expense reports show.
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Correction: Fees for Livingston Group corrected in FLIT
By Bill Allison Oct 23, 2009 3:26 p.m.Due to a data entry error, the Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker contained duplicate entries for fees paid to the Livingston Group by some its clients. We have eliminated the duplicate records. Some of the totals we reported in the two main stories that accompanied the release of the database have changed:
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Fighting net neutrality, telecom companies, outside lobbyists, cluster contributions to members of Congress
By Bill Allison Oct 22, 2009 10:45 p.m.While the Federal Communications Commission considers the first steps toward ensuring net neutrality--making certain that broadband providers do not discriminate against high traffic sites--the telecom firms that would be affected by the rules and their trade groups have been swamping Congress with a one-two punch of campaign contributions from the companies and their registered lobbyists. Some 244 members of Congress were the beneficiaries of these contribution clusters--totaling more than $9.4 million--from January 2007 to June 2009, an investigative collaboration of the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics has found. Telecom interests and their lobbyists engaged in more clustered giving than any industry save pharmaceuticals.
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Why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported spending so much on lobbying
By Bill Allison Oct 21, 2009 10:57 p.m.The latest filing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that the trade association, which represents 300,000 members--mostly businesses--spent a whopping $34,690,000 on lobbying in the third quarter of 2009. So what does this number actually mean? What are they spending their money on?
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Scaled-down missile defense system comes after ramped-up lobbying effort
By Luke Rosiak Oct 21, 2009 8:28 p.m.Lobbyists for the nation of Poland marked a win today as the country expressed relief at a scaled down US-sponsored missile shield, as the Associated Press reported, a turning point in negotiations between the countries in which Poland relied not just on diplomats, but on K Street lobbyists paid hundreds of thousands of dollars , too. The Obama administration last month agreed to dramatically scale down an Eastern European defense system that offended Russia and put a wary Poland on edge. The Bush plan would have used Poland as a potential launching point for missiles intercepting projectiles from Iran, but some viewed its ulterior target at Russia.
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Recovery.gov recipient schema
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 20, 2009 8:39 p.m.We've received a few calls from reporters asking where they can find a record layout for recipient data recently posted on recovery.gov. It doesn't seem to be available on the site, but is available on federalreporting.gov and here's a link to it.
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Foster, now facing Hastert's son, still dipping into personal wealth
By Luke Rosiak Oct 20, 2009 6:17 p.m.A bid by the son of longtime House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert to defeat the man who replaced his father is far from a sure thing, but if nothing else, a respectable showing by the younger Hastert could keep the incumbent, Bill Foster, from replenishing his personal bank account.
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Baucus Bill now available
By Bill Allison Oct 19, 2009 11:04 p.m.Read all 1,502 pages of it here (the members of the Senate Finance Committee who voted for it didn't bother to, but don't let that stop you).
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Murtha challenger trounces incumbent in fundraising; outraises Boehner and Pelosi too
By Bill Allison Oct 16, 2009 5:32 p.m.While the ethics scandals that have multiplied around top fundraisers and earmark recipients of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., have yet to involve him directly, he now faces a challenge from a different direction: A well-financed opponent.
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Bailout beneficiaries give hidden 'bundles' to House Committee overseeing industry reform
By Luke Rosiak Oct 15, 2009 6:54 p.m.As the House Financial Services Committee begins to consider financial industry reform legislation (discussion drafts started appearing on the committee's Web site on Sept. 25), will we see the same kind of hidden "bundles" flowing to members that we saw going to key members of the Senate Finance Committee from health care interests and their lobbyists? That one-two punch flooded Sen. Max Baucus' campaign coffers with more than $450,000 from 11 health care interests--and 109 lobbyists who represented them--from Jan. 2007 through the end of June, 2009.
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Recovery.gov recipient data just in
By Bill Allison Oct 15, 2009 4:50 p.m.Recovery.gov posted information today showing that 30,383 jobs have been created or saved by the federal contracts that have been awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. So far, $16 billion has been disbursed by 9,100 contracts. The federal government is spending more than $525,000 spent on every job they saved or created.
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The upper chamber and the slower filing
By Luke Rosiak Oct 15, 2009 4:10 a.m.With ten minutes to go before the midnight filing deadline, the only senator whose campaign finance report has made it through FEC.gov is Barbara Mikulksi. All available Senate filing summaries as of 11:50pm, as compiled by Sunlight, are downloadable here.
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It's 11:00. Do you know where your candidates are?
By Luke Rosiak Oct 15, 2009 3:11 a.m.Third-quarter campaign finance reports for House and Senate members are due at midnight, in just about an hour. Here at the Sunlight Foundation's Real Time Investigations, we're experimenting with a new utility that monitors the Federal Election Commission's Web site for reports as they trickle in--in, well, real time.
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