Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

In response to Renco lobbying, activists mount their own campaign

A coalition of environmental advocates has launched a letter writing campaign directed at government officials who intervened in a dispute between Renco Group and its Doe Run Peru subsidiary and the government of Peru. The campaign came after the Sunlight Foundation reported that Renco had hired eight former government officials in less than three months to lobby on its behalf.

Lobbyists move into unlimited money territory

Jeffery Scott Bensing, a registered lobbyist and former Chief of Staff to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., filed paperwork in January with the Federal Election Commission to create the Freedom Path Action Network, a new independent expenditure only committee.These committees--also known as Super PACs because they can raise unlimited funds from any source and spend it to support or oppose federal candidates--played critical roles in some races in the 2010 mid-term elections.

Geithner meets with Obama campaign fundraiser

Penny Pritzker, who served as President Obama’s finance chair during his 2008 campaign and whose name was mentioned as a possible U.S. Commerce Secretary, met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and several other top government heavyweights to discuss Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), according to meeting logs released by the agency this week.

Chamber of Commerce meets with CFTC chairman

Yesterday a lobbyist and executives representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has criticized the whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial law, met with Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to discuss the issue.

Top financial regulators meets with industry leaders, lobbyists

Elizabeth Warren, who has been charged with setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, reported more meetings with individuals outside the government in December than any other Treasury official working on implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial law.

OCE report on financial reform shows nexus between fundraising and legislating

On Nov. 24, 2009, Sara Conrad, the fundraising consultant for Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., sent an email to Michael Stein, head of government relations for financial services giant Morgan Stanley, inviting him to attend a Dec. 10 fundraising reception for Crowley’s campaign. The email was a follow-up to a prior conversation he had with Crowley’s chief of staff, Kate Winkler, about the Ways and Means Committee member's upcoming campaign events. 

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.

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. 

Banking interests strive to get regulations written their way

New meeting records disclosed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) last week show that corporate banking interests, many of which lobbied on the Dodd-Frank Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, continue to weigh in on its implementation by the agency.

Firms severing ties with Wikileaks have multiple interests before feds

Lobbying dollars continue to flow toward health care reform

The President signed the health care reform bill in March, but over $125 million in lobbying dollars continues to flow to the issue, lobbying disclosure forms show. Total dollars spent lobbying on health care issues remained high in the three months after the reform bill was passed, dipping by only $16 million since the first quarter of the year.

Lobbying data is public but not reliably searchable

The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act, requires all lobbyists to file reports with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and Secretary of the Senate and that those two offices “maximize public access” to the documents through “computerized systems.” But the searchable database of every filing by registered federal lobbyists, made available through the Senate’s Office of Public Records, has a major problem: its search engine doesn’t work correctly.

Financial reform fundraising: Are lobbyists for Wall St. firms hosting hundreds of events for lawmakers?

Sam Geduldig, a lobbyist for high profile financial firms, banks and credit card companies who has the ability to "kill legislative threats to his clients," is listed as a host on 18 invitations to fundraisers for Republican members of Congress and their leadership committees, a Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group review of Party Time data from January 2009 to the present has found.

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: