Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Backed by Hatch, Klobuchar, medical device makers score victory

In the two weeks before the Senate passed a resolution to repeal a tax on medical devices that was part of President Obama's health care overhaul, medical device interests threw a pair of fundraisers benefiting the leadership PAC of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a longtime friend of the industry.

Behind Sanford in South Carolina House race, a trail of self-funders

The race to replace Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican congressman, who won appointment earlier this year to the U.S. Senate, has attracted a (literally) rich field of candidates.

McConnell fires back in early campaign air wars

On the defensive and trying to wade off a Tea Party challenge, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has hit the airwaves with ads 20 months before Election Day.

Pro-Obama group insists it's not selling access

As donors and Democratic activists meet with President Obama surrogates today and tomorrow to discuss the launch of a political nonprofit group that will help advance president's agenda, new details have emerged about it. But not the list of high rollers who have been asked to pay $50,000 to dine tonight with the president.

Since Newtown, full employment for gun lobbyists

Since the Dec. 14 shooting that left 26 people dead at a Connecticut elementary school, at least 22 lobbyists have registered to influence Congress on gun-related issues, and several have been holding fundraisers for Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who is a potential swing vote in the legislative battle on Capitol Hill.

With court case looming, FEC has trouble deciding how to say it can't decide

The issue at the Federal Election Commission Thursday: Deciding how to say "we can't decide."

What Jon Kyl won't be lobbying on

Jon Kyl, the number two Senate Republican leader before retiring in January, has quickly become an advisor to influence powerhouse Covington & Burlington, a firm that has spent nearly $100 million lobbying in the nation's capital, Sunlight's Influence Explorer shows. Kyl will be joining a bipartisan stable of heavy hitters that includes Stuart Eizenstat, a top official in the Carter and Clinton administrations, and Senate parliamentary wizard Marty Gold.

TV stations ignore ad disclosure requirements

A decade after a landmark campaign finance reform law mandated that TV stations collect the names of board members or executive officers of groups running political ads for federal candidates or any "national legislative issue of public importance," records show broadcasters often ignore the rules.

After $100,000 inaugural donation, nuclear deal gets closer

ExxonMobil lobbies consumer agency on phthalates

Under heavy lobbying by ExxonMobil and other industry heavyweights, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is nearly a year late with a mandated report on the possible dangers found in chemicals used to create plastic products from raincoats to "rubber" duck bath toys to shampoo. A Sunlight review of the public record shows how outgunned consumer advocates are by industry.

Amazon, AT&T donated services to Obama's inaugural

While some information on the staggering sums given by the more than 20 corporations and unions that contributed to President Barack Obama's inauguration has been reported, like AT&T's staggeringly large $3 million donation, less attention has been paid to the goods and services that companies provided to the 57th inaugural.

2014 attack ads start already

It's never too early for an attack ad, apparently. The 113th Congress is barely a month old and the National Republican Congressional Committee already is beginning to lay the groundwork for Election 2014, pouncing on a recent report that newly-elected Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., failed to pay nearly $11,000 in property taxes.

Super Bowl blues: Safety concerns set off lobbying scrimmage

Another delay in ethics probes of Reps. Schock, Owens

Thanks to a parliamentary quirk and a slow start getting organized, the House Ethics Committee will not be releasing information today about the ethics probes into two members of Congress.