Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Tax preparers lobby heavily against simple filing

As Americans struggle through complex rules and messy paperwork to meet today's deadline for filing their income taxes, it might be somewhat comforting to know that making the whole arduous process simpler and more transparent has long been a goal of President Barack Obama as well as prominent Republicans in Congress, and that it's being discussed again this year.

Political heavy hitters lining up behind gay marriage

Updated: 1:20 p.m.

Eleven House races drawing 11th-hour outside money

Congressional letter writing campaign helps torpedo voluntary food marketing guidelines for kids

Days after receiving several campaign checks from the food lobby last May, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is up for reelection this year, sent a letter raising concerns about the Federal Trade Commission's efforts to develop voluntary guidelines aimed at toning down the marketing of junk food to kids.

Sunlight Live to cover Rick Perry's debate debut in California

With a new face officially in the mix, eight Republican candidates will take the stage again next week to spar about the economy, jobs, budget deficit and more at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

In House and Senate, appropriators got most contributions from earmark recipients

The Center for Responsive Politics and Taxpayers for Common Sense -- two of our favorite organizations -- have released their comprehensive earmark and influence database for fiscal year 2010 requests.

Using TransparencyData.com to track Goldman's partners

We all know, thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics, that Goldman Sachs is a heavy hitter--in the 2008 presidential cycle, among the top donors to both Barack Obama and John McCain, that its employees, their family members and its PAC favor Democrats in their giving by a two to one margin (and three to one in the 2008 election cycle), and Goldman Sachs has been among the top 100 donors to 286 election campaign committees for members of Congress.

How to easily set up a campaign finance database

No one does federal-level campaign finance better than the Center for Responsive Politics, and for the last year or so, they've outdone themselves by making all of their databases--millions of records that a staff of human beings tirelessly cleans up--available, for free, in their entirety. 

A jobless recovery for lobbyists?

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit from the Center for Responsive Politics illuminating analysis of lobbying in 2009, which found a 5 percent increase in the amounts that businesses, trade groups, unions, nonprofits, universities, state and local governments and, of course, lobbying firms themselves reported spending, was this bit:

Shining a Bright New Light on an Old Game

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.

AIG bundled for Dodd

Jennifer Haberkorn reports in the Washington Times:

Following Dirty Money

I like the concept behind what appears to be a new Washington Examiner feature called "Dirty Money" (you can see the latest installment here; I can't seem to find a page where previous installments are archived). I'm not a hundred percent certain though of their methodology of determining why certain contributions are dirty--if it's merely a company or organization that had employees or members who've committed crimes (embezzlement is one listed), that doesn't necessarily seem to taint the organization's donations. I think a little more context is needed to determine whether the employees were embezzling from the organization (which would seem to make the organization a victim) or if the embezzlement was part of a management scheme to victimize others.

CRP tracks beneficiaries of belly-up banks

Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics have been doing yeoman's work compiling lists of the politicians who've received the most money over the years from political action committees and employees and their family members of the big financial colossi that are seeking (or having imposed on them) federal help to stave off collapse. Their Lehman Brothers list is here while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are ">here.