1. SunlightLive covers health care summit

    By Luke Rosiak Feb 25, 2010 1:43 p.m.

    The Sunlight Foundation has all hands on deck today providing context for today's bipartisan healthcare summit in real time. Stay tuned all day for updates.

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  2. Potential Murtha successor Norm Dicks knows the favor factory

    By Luke Rosiak Feb 10, 2010 3:56 p.m. 1 comment

    The abrupt passing of Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) left many wondering who would replace the King of Pork as chair of the Defense Appropriations subcommitteebut anyone hoping his replacement might bring relief from a reputation for trading favors, rewarding campaign contributors and steering lucrative contracts to home districts would likely be disappointed by the pool of potential successors.  

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  3. Ruling may free corporate influencers from contortions

    By Luke Rosiak Jan 25, 2010 4:25 p.m.

    The Supreme Court's Citizens United vs. FEC ruling undoes years of restrictions on the ability of corporations and labor unions to use their treasuries to attempt to sway elections.

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  4. 48 hours = six days?

    By Luke Rosiak Jan 20, 2010 10:24 a.m.

    Disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures hold candidates accountable -- but after the votes are in, it's often too late for the scrutiny of watchdogs (and opponents) to make a difference. That's why in addition to quarterly reports, candidates must report large contributions made in the final days of the campaign within 48 hours of receiving them.

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  5. Texas politico rapidly rises to No. 1 overall donor, now No. 1 bundler

    By Luke Rosiak Jan 6, 2010 1:52 p.m. 1 comment

    What does the single largest donor in federal politics do when the maximum allowed by law just isn't enough? He collects contributions from others, becoming the single biggest bundler. What won't surprise you is that the person in question is a lobbyist. But what might surprise you is that he's based in Texas, and chances are good you've never heard of him.

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  6. Fighting net neutrality, telecom companies, outside lobbyists, cluster contributions to members of Congress

    By Bill Allison Oct 22, 2009 10:45 p.m. 5 comments

    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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  7. Shining a Bright New Light on an Old Game

    By Larry Makinson Oct 1, 2009 9:33 p.m.

    Jaws dropped around the Sunlight offices a couple of weeks ago, when we discovered after a month's worth of painstaking research the extent to which lobbyist donations were echoing, and in some cases greatly supplementing, the campaign contributions of their clients.

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  8. Less than three percent Palin's itemized PAC contributions from Alaskans

    By Luke Rosiak Jul 22, 2009 5:19 p.m. 14 comments

    Less than three percent of the itemized money raised by resigning Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's leadership PAC came from Alaskans, newly filed campaign finance reports show. SarahPAC reported raising more than $730,000 in the last six months--less than half of the $1.6 million raised by Mitt Romney's PAC.

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  9. House Ethics Committee: Investigating PMA Group or not?

    By Bill Allison Jun 3, 2009 6:06 p.m.

    Tory Newmyer reports in Roll Call:

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  10. Murtha's earmark recipients: How hands off (or on) is he?

    By Bill Allison Jun 3, 2009 4:17 p.m.

    Paul Singer reports in Roll Call on a tangled story that apparently involves the undisclosed hand of Rep. John Murtha but certainly involves his brother Kit (a retired lobbyist) and his former lobbying firm, five different companies doing business, directly or indirectly, with Defense (including one under federal indictment and one that allegedly wanted to outsource earmarked defense work to "China or someplace"), an earmark from the pre-disclosure era, some technical corrections added to the Tsunami relief bill that moved the funds for that earmark from one recipient to another (because the original recipient allegedly wanted to do the work in "China or someplace" rather than in Murtha's district), about $8.2 million of taxpayer money, and a whole lot of digging. Oh, and PMA Group makes a cameo appearance. Read the whole thing, but also consider this:

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  11. Visclosky temporarily relinquishes reins of subcommittee

    By Bill Allison Jun 2, 2009 9:27 p.m.

    Rep. Peter Visclosky, whose office has been subpoenaed for documents related to clients of the defunct lobbying firm PMA Group, has temporarily stepped down as chair of the House Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee. Lindsay Renick Mayer reports on Visclosky's woes, his top donors, and those of his replacement, Ed Pastor, who has taken less than a tenth as much in contributions from PMA Group and its clients (of course, I'm referring to contributions from their employees, family members and political action committees).

  12. CREW visualizes Murtha web

    By Bill Allison May 29, 2009 5:49 p.m.

    Here's a picture worth well over a thousand words: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has assembled an interactive, "You Don't Know Jack" graphic showing the connections between Murtha, a trio of lobbying firms, relatives, staffers and the companies for whom he's gotten earmarks.

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  13. Delving into Rep. Lewis' earmark requests

    By Bill Allison May 26, 2009 9:27 p.m. 1 comment

    Ben Goad reports for the Press Enterprise that Rep. Jerry Lewis, former chair and now ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, earmarked $96 million for firms represented by Innovative Federal Strategies, which was once under federal investigation:

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  14. New Mexico Independent asks for help hunting earmarks

    By Bill Allison May 19, 2009 10:09 p.m. 1 comment

    The New Mexico Independent is asking readers to delve into the earmark requests of Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, and comment on anything interesting they find. This is what's really important -- while the hide-and-go-seek disclosure methods of Congress make for an amusing diversion, it's the substance of the disclosures should command our attention.

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