Planet Open Government Open Source Hacking

Sunlight Foundation: Potential White House Chief of Staff Replacement?

Paul Blumenthal — 2010-09-08T20:12:19+00:00

Tom Donilon, a White House national security advisor, is being touted as a potential replacement for Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff if Emanuel decides to leave to run for mayor of Chicago. The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney has a good catch on Donilon today:

He was a top lobbyist at Fannie Mae during the housing bubble, when Fannie fought — with Democratic help — to avoid any restrictions or curbs on its work to inflate home values and get more people under mortgage. Before that, Donilon was a lobbyist at O’Melveny and Myers, where Fannie was a client.

In 2008, according to his financial disclosure forms, Donilon was a paid consultant for Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Apollo Investments.

Sunlight Foundation: NYT: Disclose lawmaker charity donations

Paul Blumenthal — 2010-09-08T16:33:33+00:00

The New York Times calls for the full and proper disclosure of donations to charities set up by lawmakers:

Congressional rules require corporate lobbyists to disclose donations to lawmakers’ charities, but many fail to do so with no consequence. The charities themselves are not required to disclose their donors, and there are no limits to the amount a donor can give. The Office of Congressional Ethics looked into a few of these foundations last year, but was stymied when the House granted several congressmen the right to solicit donations even when the donors had business before their committees.

The art of currying favor in Washington is an ancient one, and both lawmakers and corporations have become exceptionally creative at finding ways around every legal obstacle reducing the influence of big money. But these “donations” need to be fully disclosed and strictly limited like the campaign contributions they resemble. Members of Congress should pay heed to the rising tide of anti-incumbent disgust this year and stop acting like greedy chiselers of corporate largess.

I’m not sure that these donations need to be “strictly limited,” but they certainly ought to be fully disclosed. The disclosure should not be limited to lobbyists or corporate money, but should include the executives and other non-lobbyists who choose to funnel money to these charities.

This editorial is in response to a New York Times article, published on Monday, that highlighted the ways in which lawmakers use charities to court corporate donors and build mini-fiefdoms in their districts and states by displaying their beneficence.

The Open House Project: The Day in Transparency 9/8/10

2010-09-08T15:48:19+00:00

Here is Wednesday’s look at transparency-related news items, today’s congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events.

News Roundup:

In an editorial, the New York Times called for congressional charities to disclose their donors. (The New York Times)
For-profit colleges are lobbying against a proposed rule that would halt federal dollars from going toward programs that saddle students with too much debt. (The New York Times)
House Republican leaders are not commenting on whether they will disband the Office of Congressional Ethics if the Republicans win control of the House this fall. (The Hill)
After months of contributing more money to Democrats, Wall Street firms are now making significantly more contributions to Republicans. (OpenSecrets)
Despite being the group that successfully challenged federal contribution limits in court, SpeechNow.org has yet to register with the Federal Elections Commission to received unlimited contributions. (The Center For Public Integrity)
The Federal Communications Commission has launched a new website that contains datasets and tools that developers can use to create applications. (nextgov)
The White House has launched Challenge.gov, a website that awards cash prizes to citizens that can solve problems facing federal agencies. (nextgov)

Relevant committee hearings scheduled for 9/8:

None

Relevant bills introduced:

None

Transparency events scheduled for 9/8:

None

Open Secrets: Murkowski Not Done Yet, Political Mudslinging on Twitter and More in Capital Eye Opener: September 8

Lauren Hepler — 2010-09-08T15:32:06+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

MURKOWSKI CONTINUING RE-ELECTION BID WITH REMAINING CAMPAIGN CASH?: Incumbent U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) may have conceded defeat in last week’s Alaska Republican primary to Tea Party-backed candidate Joe Miller, but now the politician from one of the state’s most powerful political families tells the Associated Press that she hasn’t conceded for good.

Murkowski, pictured right, who still has more than $1 million in her re-election fund, says she is exploring other avenues to get on the Alaska ballot this November, including a possible switch to the Libertarian Party or a write-in candidacy. While officials for the Alaska Libertarian Party are skeptical of Murkowski’s stance on issues such as the Iraq War and taxation, Murkowski vowed that she “still in this game.”

Murkowski’s primary defeat defied the incumbent advantage often held in campaign fundraising, as the senator brought in a total of $3.8 million -- including more than $500,000 from the electric utilities and oil and gas industries -- this election cycle alone.

CONGRESSIONAL CONTEST IN VIRGINIA TURNS PERSONAL ON TWITTER: The race for Virginia’s 5^th

House District veered away from policy to more personal grudges Tuesday after a National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman posted the home addresses of six staffers working for Democratic incumbent Tom Perriello (D-Va.) on Twitter.

The NRCC spokesman, Andy Sere, tweeted the addresses after Periello’s camp criticized Republican challenger Robert Hurt for “carpetbagging” by bringing in staffers from out-of-state.

Though Perriello has nearly tripled Hurt in total campaign funds raised, with more than $2.3 million raised compared to Hurt’s $770,000, new polls indicate a dead heat in the final months of the campaign.

In response to the leaked addresses, a Perriello spokesperson called for Hurt to “refuse to accept any more support from the NRCC unless Andy Sere is fired.”

REP. CAROLYN MALONEY’S CAMPAIGN FINANCE ETHICS ATTACKED: Incumbent Rep. Carolyn

Maloney

, pictured left, (D-N.Y.) faced harsh criticism for fund-raising efforts with financial lobbyists from fellow Democrat and challenger for New York’s 14th Congressional District seat, Reshma Saujani, in a debate broadcast on New York radio Tuesday.

Saujani, pictured right, a 34- year-old attorney with degrees from Harvard and Yale who has never held an elected position, called for an inquiry into two fund-raisers hosted by Maloney for financial lobbyists in the midst of congressional debate over financial reform legislation.

Maloney, 64, who has served in the House since 1992 while representing much of Manhattan and part of Queens, has received campaign funding from numerous industries in the financial sector. Throughout her career, many of Maloney’s top contributors have been from the finance sector, including Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs.

During the 2010 election cycle, Maloney has raised more than $2.7 million, compared to Saujani’s $1.4 million total. However, Saujani has only $228,205 remaining in cash while Maloney still has more than $1.9 million cash on hand as of Aug. 25.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

Sunshine Review: Minnesota taxpayer-funded lobbying: How much disclosure is enough?

2010-09-08T15:20:12+00:00

A few months back, the Illinois Policy Institute released a report heralding the transparency of Minnesota on the state’s disclosure of its taxpayer-funded lobbying.

Taxpayer-funded lobbying is just what it sounds like: lobbying funded by citizens’ money. Local and state governments use public funds, which come from tax dollars, to lobby for legislation and to attempt to gain money from other governments.

Not much is known about this process, which is why the Illinois Policy Institute was optimistic about Minnesota’s disclosure. Every year, the Minnesota state auditor releases the Local Government Lobbying Services Report, which details the cost of lobbying by entities in the state. The report includes payments to taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, as well as contracts with lobbyists. A very good job of proactive disclosure, especially considering the archives for this information go back to 1989.

Or so it would seem. The nonprofit Freedom Foundation of Minnesota recently released a report highlighting the federal lobbying spending of 26 public entities in the state. The entities spent $5.2 million since 2006 lobbying federal officials.

So what’s the problem? Federal lobbying isn’t included in the auditor’s report. According to the Freedom Foundation president, this needs to change:

“It’s critical that taxpayers have an understanding of how much their local governments are spending on lobbying,” he said. “It is important for them to know how much their cities and counties are spending to lobby legislators in St. Paul. It stands to reason it is just as important for them to know how much they are spending to lobby congressmen in Washington, D.C.”

That makes perfect sense. Minnesota should be lauded for its efforts in being accountable to its citizens, but in transparency, there’s always room for improvement. Federal lobbying should be disclosed as readily as state and local lobbying is. Minnesota will be all the better for it.

Sunlight Labs: Announcing Clearspending -- and Why It's Important

2010-09-08T15:08:11+00:00

Today we're launching Clearspending -- a site devoted to our analysis of the data behind USASpending.gov. Ellen's already written about this project over on the main foundation blog, and you should certainly check out her post. But I wanted to talk about it a little bit here, too, because this project is near & dear to my heart, having grown out of work that Kaitlin, Kevin and I did together before I stepped into the role of Labs Director.

The three of us had been working with the USASpending database for a while, and in the course of that work we began to realize some discouraging things. The data clearly had some problems. We did some research and wrote some tests to quantify those problems -- that effort turned into Clearspending. The results were unequivocal: the data was bad -- really bad. Unusably bad, in fact. As things currently stand, USASpending.gov really can't be relied upon.

You can read all about it over at the Clearspending site, and I hope you will -- in addition to an analysis that looked at millions of rows of data and found over a trillion dollars' worth of messed-up spending reports, we spent a lot of time talking to officials at all levels of the reporting chain. I don't think you're likely to find a better discussion of these systems and their problems.

And make no mistake, these systems are important. If you want to find out -- in detail -- what the government is spending your money on, these are the systems you're going to have to turn to. In fact, when Congress wants to know how it's been spending money, they typically ask CRS to have a look at what's in these systems. There are other measures of spending -- the budget, for one, and Treasury data about expenditures for another -- but that data tends to be less detailed or impossible to organize by program. This isn't just about one website -- it's about the way we keep tabs on our society's use of its resources. We shouldn't let these systems become afterthoughts. Regardless of whether you think the government spends too much of our money or too little, surely we can all agree that taxpayers deserve to know how much it's spending right now.

But there's also a larger point that I want to make about this analysis: it's not news -- not really. People have known that this data is bad for a very long time. Not in this level of detail, perhaps. But they've known there were problems. Yet instead of fixing those problems, the folks behind USASpending decided to build new websites on top of the same lousy data, collecting superficial plaudits from advocates who were excited about the apparent potential of the site but didn't have sufficiently direct access to the data to see its flaws

From one perspective, this is understandable. These are hard problems, and the people responsible for USASpending don't really have the power necessary to get other agencies into line. Still, it's deeply disappointing to me that this could happen. And it's a reminder that we shouldn't get complacent -- that it's great to hear government officials say the right things about transparency, but that we still need to pay careful attention to the results of their efforts. This is one of the reasons I think it's vitally important for those of us advocating for open data need to be open data users, too. If we don't actually get our hands dirty with this stuff, we as a community are not going to be able to offer meaningful critiques.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the help we've received as we pursued this project. Donna Fossum may know more about these systems than anyone else on the planet; the incredible depth of her knowledge benefited the project immensely. We're also grateful to OMB Watch for contributing their perspective, and for being the first ones to let us know that USASpending had problems worth investigating. And many thanks to the officials at GSA, OMB and HHS who were generous with their time and anxious to hear about our work.

Sunlight Foundation: Clearspending. Thats What We Need.

Ellen Miller — 2010-09-08T14:45:20+00:00

As I noted in my speech yesterday at the Gov2.0 Summit, Gov2.0 has become a popular catchphrase in Washington today and no organization has been more excited about its potential when it comes to data transparency than the Sunlight Foundation. But now, some 20 months since President Obama made his initial commitment to technology and transparency, we have numerous concerns. One of the core examples that I used was USASpending.gov, which President Obama championed into law when he was in the Senate, along with Sen. Tom Coburn, in 2007.

USASpending was created to provide the public with information about how the federal government spends our tax dollars. It was launched nearly three years ago and has already gone through three redesigns, each one flashier than the next. The site is pretty impressive graphics-wise, but unfortunately the data provided is full of inaccuracies, according to Clearspending, a new Sunlight site that tracks and illustrates just how broken the data is. We were deliberate in our approach when conducting this analysis, and we hope that by giving these problems the light of day, it might actually help get them fixed.

Think of Clearspending.com as a kind of scorecard that analyzes how well U.S. government agencies are reporting their spending data on USASpending.gov.

What Sunlight has found, and Clearspending shows in great detail, is that more than $1.3 trillion in federal reporting data from 2009 is unreliable. The data inaccuracies we uncovered account for 70 percent of the total $1.9 trillion in government spending data reported in that year. Some of the numbers are too big, some are too small and some are missing completely, while other spending data entries don’t have the detail that’s required or were reported months later than the law demands.

When it comes to making data available, it has to be accurate. Federal agencies need to focus first on the quality of data they collect. If the data is unreliable, then the quality of websites they release — or the tools built upon it — is irrelevant.

The government has known about the problems we’ve illustrated on Clearspending, and they say they’re working to fix it. But instead we have only gotten a series of redesigned websites, each one with data just as unreliable as the one before it.

There’s a tremendous amount of work left to do before Gov2.0 becomes a reality. These are not easy tasks, and certainly not glamorous ones. But these are the types of challenges that we must undertake if the promise of Gov2.0 is going to be realized.

The Open House Project: The Day in Sunlight 9/8/2010

2010-09-08T13:50:47+00:00

Here is a look at what happened yesterday on the Sunlight network.

At the Gov2.0 Summit yesterday, Ellen Miller analyzed the Obama administration’s efforts to make government more transparent. (Sunlight Foundation Blog)
Nicole Aro looked at 10Questions, an online forum that crowdsources questions for candidates to answer. (Sunlight Foundation Blog)
In the wake of Citizens United, more political organizations are registering to received unlimited corporate and union funds to make independent expenditures. (Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group)
Sarah Dorsey looked at Tennessee’s efforts to put government data online. (Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group)
Take a look at the previous day’s transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency related events. (The Open House Project)

Open Congress: Credit Card Companies Find Their Loophole

Donny Shaw — 2010-09-08T13:20:00+00:00

The big credit card reform bill (H.R.627) that was passed by Congress and signed into law last year by President Obama was designed to end absuses and deceptive practices in the consumer credit market. It did not apply to teh business credit card market. However, there’s nothing stopping credit card companies from marketing their business cards to individuals. After all, anybody can be a sole proprietorship, and it’s up to the card comapnies to decide who qualifies. According to USA Today this is exactly the loophole card companies are using to dodge the new consumer protections:

Business credit cards are exempt from the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act that was signed into law last year, says Bill Hardekopf, chief executive of LowCards.com. That means business card issuers can do a lot of things prohibited by the CARD Act. They can increase the interest rate on your existing balance, jack up your rate after just one late payment and apply payments to the balance with the lowest rate first.

Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., charged credit card issuers with marketing business cards to consumers in an effort to evade the new restrictions on consumer cards.

“Credit card companies are purposely hawking corporate cards to consumers who don’t own a business and may even be retired,” Schumer said in a statement. “This is more than deceptive marketing. It is a dirty trick meant to get around the new credit card law.”

Schumer called on the Federal Reserve Board to require issuers to make clear on business credit card applications that the cards aren’t intended for personal use.

Officials with the American Bankers Association say they’ve seen no evidence that credit card issuers are marketing business cards to consumers. It’s clear, though, that issuers have ramped up solicitations for these cards. Card issuers mailed out 46 million business credit card offers in the first quarter, up 256% from the first quarter of 2009, according to Synovate Mail Monitor, which tracks direct-mail offers.

Congress wasn’t totally ignorant to this possibility. When the bill moved through the Senate, the substitute amendment from Banking Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd [D, CT] added a new section to it, Sec. 506, calling for the Federal Reserve to conduct a study of the market of credit cards for small businesses with 50 employees or less. The Fed is directed by the bill to look at stuff that’s pretty similat to what the bill sought to rein in in the consumer market — “the adequacy of disclosures of terms, fees, and other expenses,” " the adequacy of protections against unfair or deceptive acts or practices," etc. But it’s just a study, and all the Fed is empowered to doif they find abuses is make recommendations to Congress on how to fix it through legislation.

Anyways, I point this out not to say Congress messed up with the bill, but to draw more attention to a typical legislative loophole and, maybe, make us all a little better at detecting these kinds of things in future proposals. Obviously, it takes transparency from Congress — lawmakers, the public, and interest groups need time to read the bill and reflect on it — and it takes a greater civic effort to pay attention to Congress’ policy work and not just the politics.

Sunlight Foundation: Gov2.0 Presentation: An Open Government Scorecard

Ellen Miller — 2010-09-07T23:27:41+00:00

I was absolutely delighted to present at the Gov2.0 Summit here in Washington this morning. Thanks to Tim OReilly and his whole crew for the invitation and all the hard work they put into the event.

I have to admit it was a real challenge to present an “Open Government Scorecard” in the 10 minutes I had allotted to me but as I prepared my remarks I found that the time constraint really made me focus. There were a number of disappointments that I have in the President’s record that I didn’t mention, such as his calling for — but not acting upon – a centralized database for earmarks, or his promises to push for lobbying reform that has never materialized — but I hit some of the major concerns that I and my colleagues at Sunlight have with the Open Government Directive, Recovery.gov, Data.gov, and USA Spending.gov. (Tomorrow I’ll talk more about our ongoing analysis of the data on that site.)

And rather that summarize my remarks, I’m presenting them in full below. Let me know what you think in the comment section below.

From the Executive Memorandum on transparency issued by President Obama on the first full day in office, to the full-blown Open Government Directive, to establishing new policies regulating lobbying of the Executive Branch, no organization has been more excited, enthusiastic or optimistic about the advent of Gov 2.0 for data transparency than Sunlight. In many respects, this Administration has gone further and faster toward creating a transparent government than any that’s preceded it.

But now, 20 months later, the drive for transparency appears stalled.
*
The Open Government Directive — the Administration’s 10-month-old manifesto on government transparency — can either become a dated relic destined for the ashbin of history, or a transformative commitment to a new era of openness. Right now it’s teetering someplace in between.

As you may recall, the central thrust of the directive is its insistence that all government departments create and implement their own open data plans, aimed at releasing “high-value” data to the public. The plans that resulted, however, were little more than aspirational. In the first of those plans, 12 out of 30 agencies didn’t identify any data for future publication and altogether only 75 new data sets were promised. 75 data sets? That was hugely disappointing.

Enforcement of these plans has always been ‘soft.’ And now even faces greater uncertainty with the departure of OMB Director Peter Orszag and WH Ethics Counsel Norm Eisen. The Directive is only as strong as its enforcement.
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To be sure, there have been some meaningful first steps from agencies and the White House. HHS and NASA both immediately spring to mind as aggressively pursuing new projects that are on the cutting edge. The White House itself has taken some meaningful steps in posting its staffers’ ethics filings online, requiring extensive stimulus lobbying disclosure, and posting the Visitor Logs online for the first time. But these aren’t well-established policies, and exemptions to publishing this data are unclear and unstated. All of these initiatives need a steady hand and a clear commitment to mature into permanent, reliable, effective policies.

And one central Obama campaign promise, to “create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings” isn’t even on the drawing boards.
*
Data.gov started with enormous promise. A single catalog for all government data is very exciting in concept. As it has evolved, we have gotten a progressively better website: a more attractive design, and somewhat improved organization of the data sets. But it’s still a pretty mediocre data repository and the types of data available remains an enormous concern.

It turns out that the government has some interesting ideas about what counts as “high value” information. The Department of the Interior seems to feel that population counts of wild horses and burros are “high value” but records of safety violations like the ones that seem to have led to the Upper Branch Mine disaster are not.

We want to see data that can be used to hold government – and the entities that report to it – accountable: records and data that would allow the public to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of federal programs, policies and initiatives; the competence and integrity of its employees and contractors; its management of public resources.
*
Recovery.gov, the government’s signature project to demonstrate transparency around economic stimulus spending is hard consider it more than a qualified success. And the idea of collecting job creation data at the most local level was overly optimistic from the start – and ended with Vice President Biden making excuses for the data’s poor quality on the Daily Show.
*
Now, let’s take a look at USASpending.gov, the project that then-Senator Obama and Senator Tom Coburn championed into law back in 2007.

USASpending was created to provide the public with information about how the federal government spends our tax dollars. It was launched in late 2007, but it’s already gone through three redesigns, each one flashier than the next, with gradients and maps and now a sort of GapMinder-style visualization tool. It’s pretty impressive…. looking. Unfortunately, its data is almost completely useless….

To demonstrate just how flawed, Sunlight is announcing today a new project today called Clear Spending.

This project – the result of the hard work of Sunlight’s Kaitlin Lee and Kevin Webb — is an ongoing analysis of the grants data in USASpending. We started with a methodology for evaluating data quality that has been used by the GAO.

It’s really pretty simple.

Federal spending gets reported in two places. Individual transactions are sent to USASpending. There’s also a separate, somewhat redundant process where total spending for each program is reported to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, or CFDA. It’s possible to tally up the USASpending records by program, and compare those totals to the ones in the CFDA. When the two don’t match, we know there’s a problem.

That’s the heart of the method. We also looked at whether the reporting occurred on time, and whether all of the reports’ mandatory fields were filled out. Then we automated those three tests, so that we could run them against all ten million rows of the USASpending database.

The results aren’t pretty. We found over 1.3 trillion dollars of broken reporting in 2009 alone. That’s fully half of the spending for that year. Some of the numbers are too big, some are too small, some are missing completely. Others don’t have the detail that’s required, or were reported months later than the law demands.

The data powering USASpending is broken. You can’t trust any aggregate numbers you get from the site — answers to questions about federal spending that rise above the micro level. When we say things just don’t add up, we mean it.

The government has known about this problem, and they say they’re working to fix it. But what we’ve actually gotten is a series of redesigned websites, each one with data just as unreliable as the one before it.

We are beginning to worry that the Administration is more interested in style than substance.
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If we settle for a superficial kind of approach, Gov 2.0 will be remembered as a failure. Government has learned to say the right things — now we need government to actually get serious about technology and transparency.
*

There’s a lot of work left to do. These are not easy tasks, or certainly not glamorous ones. But these are the types of challenges that we must undertake if the promise of Gov 2.0 is going to be realized.

For starters, we have to take on some of the responsibility for making this happen ourselves – I mean ‘us’ as in the community of Americans who are concerned about accountability. And that’s a lot of us. And we wear all kinds of political labels from conservative to liberal, to libertarian to the labels of Tea and Coffee Party activists.

Our job is to hold the Administration’s feet to the fire – bureaucrats aren’t going to act just because someone asks nicely. Government isn’t going to change how and when it makes data available – even when a few good people on the inside want it to – because of a directive.

It’s not going to happen until laws are changed, or Executive Orders are issued, or until enforcers are given real power and the President himself makes it a priority.

And finally, we need to admit that Gov2.0 isn’t happening until citizens are truly actively engaged in helping to demand and co-create it.

We can still have a government that is truly open, participatory and collaborative. But it won’t happen until we push for it.

Thank you.

Open Secrets: Wall Street Aggressively Filling Republican Coffers After Many Months Supporting Democrats

Dave Levinthal — 2010-09-07T19:43:26+00:00

Wall Street-related political donations are bolstering Republicans' political fortunes this summer as financial interests have suddenly -- and dramatically -- shifted their contributions away from Democrats, who they largely favored last year.

In both the first and second quarters of this year, the broad finance, insurance and real estate sector has favored Republican candidates and committees in its political giving, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis finds. The same holds true for both the more narrow commercial banking and securities and investment industries.

This trend is a notable departure from last year, when the finance, insurance and real estate sector sent more money to federal-level Democrats than Republicans during each quarter, the Center finds. People and political action committees associated with the securities and investment industry favored Democrats as recently as 2009's 4th quarter, while the commercial banking industry favored Democrats as recently as 2009's 1st quarter.

The findings by the Center, which underscore a preliminary analysis from August, indicate an increased frustration with congressional Democrats by Wall Street interests, many of which are still smarting from passage of federal financial reforms they consider onerous. (Download a full quarter-by-quarter breakdown of Wall Street contribution amounts here: financequarterly.xlsx )

People and political action committees associated with the finance, insurance and real estate sector significantly favored Democratic candidates during the early months of 2009.

But in February, a dramatic shift occurred -- to Republicans' advantage, the Center finds.

That month, Republicans represented 17 of the top 25 federal-level recipients of finance, insurance and real estate-related money. It's a shift that's persisted, too: In each month since June, at least two-thirds of the sector's 25 favorite candidates have been Republicans.

It's with little irony that this change in donation patterns coincided with congressional Democrats' aggressively pushing financial reform legislation -- legislation highly unpopular with many banks and financial houses.

Follow the shift in how many candidates among the finance, insurance and real estate sector's top targets were in each month Democrats and Republicans:

And click here to download a month-by-month list of the top 25 recipients of finance, insurance and real estate sector political contributions from January 2009 to June 2010: FIREcontribs.xlsx

Consider the case of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), traditionally a prime Wall Street target.

In each month between January 2009 and August 2009, Reid ranked among the top five federal-level recipients of finance, insurance and real estate-related donations but for one month -- March 2009 -- when he ranked No. 7.

But between September 2009 and June, Reid failed to crack the top five even once.

His best showing, in May, placed him 6th among congressional candidates -- one of only three times since September 2009 that he's even managed to finish a month in the top 10.

By June, only two of the top 10 recipients of finance, insurance and real estate-related political cash were Democrats: Sens. Charles Schumer ($237,700) and Kirsten Gillibrand ($259,471), both of whom count Wall Street as a constituent.

Among the Republicans within June's top 10 list: Senate candidates Carly Fiorina of California, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Overall, the finance, insurance and real estate sector has funneled about $194.4 million into federal politics through June 30, with Democrats for the entire cycle maintaining a narrow edge in overall contributions -- 51 percent to 48 percent.

Such a figure puts the finance, insurance and real estate sector on pace to easily exceed its federal-level political contribution total from the 2006 midterm cycle -- $262.9 million.

During this year's second quarter, the finance, insurance and real estate sector pumped $28.54 million in federal-level contributions into the political system, with $16.29 million going to Republican candidates and interests, while about $12.1 million went to Democrats.

Compare that to the first quarter of 2009, when the sector sent $15.32 million the way of Democrats, compared to $10.1 million to Republicans.

Through June 30, political action committees alone from the finance, insurance and real estate sector had contributed $49.4 million to federal political candidates and committees. That already exceeds what PACs from this sector spent for the entire 2002 election cycle -- $47 million.

Center for Responsive Politics Senior Researchers Dan Auble and Doug Weber contributed to this report.

Sunlight Foundation: Ask the question about transparency that youve always wanted

Nicole Aro — 2010-09-07T18:33:21+00:00

Ever get tired of hearing pundits ask softball questions to politicians? Or finally hear a really great question, only to have it answered in a few TV friendly, pre-packaged bullet points that don’t tell you anything you didn’t already know?

Thanks to the work of our friends at Personal Democracy Forum, we don’t have to accept this one way channel of communication. With 10Questions, every American can be a part of the conversation with those running for office this election season. First launched in 2007, 10Questions is “the first truly people-powered online candidate forum that seeks to involve millions of voters in prioritizing the questions they want answered, and moving politicians away from sound-bites to in-depth discussion of issues.”

For the 2010 midterms, 10Questions is being rolled out again for many of the most competitive races across the country. It’s a simple process, open to anyone across the country. To participate, just submit a question (deadline: September 14th). Then, vote the questions submitted up or down (voting ends September 21st). The top 10 questions are submitted to candidates, and by October 14th, candidates will post video responses to those questions on 10questions.com. Afterward, there’s another open voting period in which you decide how well you think candidates actually answered the questions, so they have an incentive to be thorough and thoughtful in their answers.

This is a particularly great opportunity for those of us in the transparency and open government movement; while transparency is crucial to keeping our elected officials accountable, candidates rarely field questions about open policies. If you haven’t yet, submit a question about transparency, or head over to vote to make sure that candidates have to explain how they’re going to make their administrations open.

Transparency is a pretty broad issue, so if you’re looking for ideas or resources to help formulate a more specific question, check out this collaborative guide to some of the work being done in this field: http://snlg.ht/9na1Wn.

Let us know your question in the comments, or highlight any that you think are particularly great.

Note: The co-founders of the Personal Democracy Forum, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry serve as advisors to the Sunlight Foundation.

Sunshine Review: USASpending.gov “almost entirely useless”

2010-09-07T17:57:19+00:00

The Sunlight Foundation called out federal agencies at the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, DC today. USASpending.gov “almost entirely useless,” said Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation.

The organization has launched its own website, Clearspending.com, which has found that roughly half, or $1.4 trillion, in spending has misreported on government websites.

Miller did not stop at USASpending.gov, but also criticized Data.gov and Recovery.gov for equally bad reporting.

Which begs the question, how can we guarantee the government will report accurately? What checks and balances can be put in place to keep government reporting honest? We’ll see what the summit decides, but I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on the subject.

Open Secrets: OpenSecrets Blog's PolitiQuizz: What Politician Does Google Like to Ogle?

Megan R. Wilson — 2010-09-07T17:19:08+00:00

Google and Verizon are coming under some serious scrutiny for the suggestion that they may make their users’ pages load more quickly than those visited on other Web providers. Or, in nerd talk: They’re threatening net neutrality, a cherished rule in the Internet kingdom.

Both companies are big fund-raisers for the Democrats, with each sending more than half (and in Google’s case, nearly 75 percent) of all their associated political donations the way of blue backers. Google and its employees rank third among the top donors to federal candidates and parties in the computers and Internet industry and remain on pace to exceed political action committee spending from the last election cycle.

That brings us to this week’s PolitiQuizz:

Within the 2010 election cycle, which candidate has Google's political action committee loved the most, and which House subcommittee does he or she head?

The first person to answer the following questions correctly by leaving an answer in this blog post's comments section will win a free copy of The Blue Pages: Second Edition, the new book for which the Center for Responsive Politics provides data and analysis.

Answers will be accepted until 5 p.m. Friday. Results will be posted as part of next Monday's PolitiQuizz. (Make sure to provide your e-mail address so we may contact you if you win!)

Now back to last week's PolitiQuizz, where we asked you to identify a big ‘ol caffeinated spender:

Using the following hints and OpenSecrets.org, what is the name of this well-known java corporation?

During 2009, this company spent $520,000 on federal lobbying, and during the first half of 2010, it spent $360,000 lobbying on the Democrats’ health care reform bill, cap-and-trade energy bills, the Employee Free Choice Act and “menu labeling language” within the Food Safety Modernization Act, among other priorities. Furthermore, its employees have given its home-state senators tens of thousands of dollars in the past decade, but it does not operate a political action committee.

The correct answer is: Starbucks.

And the winner is ... “JP!”

Congratulations. For your java-related smarts, you will receive a copy of The Blue Pages. Nice work; and to the rest of you: better luck this week!

The Open House Project: The Day in Transparency 9/7/10

2010-09-07T16:01:24+00:00

Here is Tuesday’s look at transparency-related news items, the week’s congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events.

News Roundup:

Corporations who donate to congressional charities have often received help in return. (The New York Times) (Documents) (Graphic)
The former law and lobbying firm of newly appointed Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-WV) claims several powerful K Street names as clients. (The Hill)
Post-Citizens United, the Federal Election Commission is playing an outsized role in shaping the rules governing campaign finance. (National Journal)($)
A marketing study found that Target’s reputation has taken a hit for a donation to a conservative group made possible by Citizens United. (Mother Jones)
Newsweek profiled Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), co-chair of the House Transparency Caucus and senior Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (Newsweek)
Due to a heavy caseload, the Office of Congressional Ethics has contracted over $500,000 worth of work to a Chicago consulting firm. (Politico)
Congress is not being transparent when it comes to the leasing of official vehicles and for congressional websites. (OMB Watch)
OpenTheGovernment.org gave the Obama administration mixed reviews in its annual open government report card. (nextgov)

Relevant committee hearings scheduled for 9/7-9/10:

None

Relevant bills introduced:

None

Transparency events scheduled for 9/7-9/10:

The Assault on the Elected Judiciary: How Well-Funded Special Interests Are Seeking to Change (for the Worse) How States Select Their Judges, The Heritage Foundation, Thursday, Sept. 9, 12 p.m – 1 p.m., 217 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Lehrman Auditorium.

Open Congress: Obama Stimulus Measure Begins Shaping Up

Donny Shaw — 2010-09-07T15:28:00+00:00

I’m down in D.C. today and tomorrow for the excellent Gov 2.0 summit, hearing from a great bunch of folks from both inside and outside government on how the internet and open data can be harnessed to bolster transparency and efficiency, and improve governance through a more participatory civic infrastructure. You can follow along on Twitter using the #g2s hashtag and you can stream some session live here.

Before I dive too far into the exciting world of gov 2.0, here’s a quick update on the Obama stimulus measure that is probably going to keep Congress busy from when they return to D.C. on Monday until they adjourn sometime in Septemeber.

First and foremost, the payroll tax holiday, an idea favored by most Republicans and that probably would have been swallowed without too much bitterness by most Democrats, is now, reportedly, off the table. At this point, here’s what the new Obama stimulus package is looking like:

1) Allowing businesses to deduct 100% of their equipment purchases from their taxes through 2011. This woud be the deepset business reinvestment incentive in recent history. According to the NYT, it would cost the federal govenrmenta bout $200 billion in lost revenues, $170 billion of which is expected to be recouped eventually through revenue gains when/if the stimulus measures start turning the economy around.

2) Making the research and development tax credit permanent. This credit has been in place, nearly constantly, for the past 30 years. But it’s always been done through temporary extensions, and the politics and uncertainty involved in it have put a bit of a damper on its effect. Making it permanent should make businesses more confident that they can predict the costs associated with investing in innovation.

3) New infrastructure investments. Obama yesterday announced that he plans to call for $50 billion in new spending for infrastructure projects — roads, trains, and runways — to be organized through a new “infrastructure bank” that would give priority to projects that are able to attract private funds. To pay for the projects, he is proposing to eliminate some oil and gas company tax breaks and loopholes that have been in place since the late 90’s.

Now, it’s hard to imagine this infrastructure spending not being lopped off in the Senate. Assuming Sen. Ben Nelson [D, NE] is a no, if all other Democrats voted in favor of it (and that’s a big if), they’d still need 2 Republican votes to break an inevitable filibuster. But the ususal Republican cross-overs haven’t been biting on Dem stimulus plans for the past few months. And as the campaign season begins in earnest, Republican cross-over votes are even less likely.

Plus, it’s already been shown that the plan to end oil comapny tax breaks can’t survive on its own. In June, Sen. Bernie Sanders [I, VT] brought an amendment to end the tax breaks to a vote and it failed miserably, 35-61. Twenty-one Democrats and all Republicans voted against it.

Also noteworthy is one thing that has not been floated for incluson in the package — extending unemployment benefits. The CBO recently found that unemploment benefits are the most stimulative form of government spending, more than twice as stimulative as equipment investment credits and significantly more effective than infrastructure spending. Yet, after Nov. 30, none of the millions of long-term unemployed will be eligible for insurance payments. Not to mention the millions of 99ers who continue to be ignored.

The Open House Project: The Day in Sunlight 9/7/2010

2010-09-07T14:13:18+00:00

Here is a look at what happened last Friday on the Sunlight network.

Joshua Ruihley looked at what the folks over at Sunlight Labs have been working on. (Sunlight Labs)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission will launch a searchable, online database of consumer product complaints. (Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group)
Take a look at the previous day’s transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency related events. (The Open House Project)

Open Secrets: Ex-NRCC Treasurer Guilty, Corporate Donations Shift Right and More in Capital Eye Opener: September 7

Megan R. Wilson — 2010-09-07T12:52:31+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

NRCC TREASURER ADMITS TO STEALING SIX-FIGURE DONATIONS: Earlier this month, the former treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee pleaded guilty to embezzling $845,000 in donations from GOP over a six year period by falsifying checks and making wire transfers to his own bank account, Congressional Quarterly reported.

During the four election cycles that Christopher J. Ward was treasurer, the committee recorded raising $694.4 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Ward faces numerous penalties: the seizure of his home, up to three years in jail, a $10,000 fine for falsifying documents concerning donations to the Federal Election Committee and a $75,000 criminal fine.

GRAB THE CHECKBOOK AS UNLIMITED INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURE COMMITTEES SPRING UP: Since the end of last month, at least five political committees have registered with the Federal Election Committee stating that they intend to collect unlimited donations, according to Congressional Quarterly and Greg Giroux, a writer for Bloomberg.

The unlimited expenditure standing means that individuals, corporations and unions can donate unlimited sums for the committees to use in campaigning for (or against) certain candidates, parties and issues -- a likely gear-up for the midterm elections on Nov. 2.

Two new filings this month, the American Dental Association and the Texas Tea Party Patriots, represent the old and the new establishments. On the older side, the ADA has been a big player in politics for decades, with its PAC spending upward of $11.4 million since the 2000 election cycle, and $2.1 million in this cycle alone.

The Texas Tea Party Patriots, or the new kids on the campaign finance block, likely hope to raise more than their currently established counterparts, with other Tea Party-related PACs raising and spending averages in the low to mid six-figure range.

MAJOR CORPORATE DONATIONS SHIFT RIGHT: An analysis of Federal Election Committee data by the Houston Chronicle details how more than 100 donors that heavily favored Democrats in the 2008 election cycle have switched their giving to Republicans in this cycle.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), at the helm of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has garnered $72.3 million for the committee and spent $51.8 million this election cycle for the committee, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has raised a higher amount, with a total of $78.4 million during the 2010 election cycle, according to the Center's research. But the donors are other politics-related PACs, rather than the corporate donors Cornyn notes to courting in the Chronicle article.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

Special Libraries Association Government Information Division: Colorado Law Week Honors Director of Native American Law Library

2010-09-06T20:54:02+00:00

David Selden, Director of the National Indian Law Library in Boulder, Colorado (http://www.narf.org/nill/), has been honored as one of Law Week Colorado's Outstanding Legal Professionals of 2010.

The National Indian Law Library is a public law library devoted to federal Indian and tribal law. Its collection consists of Native American legal materials ranging from books and journal articles to tribal self-governance documents, such as tribal codes and constitutions.

Selden was featured in the August 23 print issue of Law Week Colorado. In the article, Jamie Cotten writes:

Next door to the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder is the National Indian Law Library - a small building filled with Native American law books and codes.

The former fraternity house is now a nationally recognized Native American law library, run for the past 12 years by law librarian David Selden, one of Law Week Colorado's picks for our 2010 Outstanding Legal Professionals issue.

Earlier this year, Selden received the Roy M. Merskey Spirit of Law Librarianship Award, given to nationally recognized people in librarianship.

It's an award for [someone] who's done a lot for community service outside of their profession, so it related to my environmental work that I've been doing and volunteerism for the Colorado Indian Bar," Selden said.

"The award generally goes to the big names in the field, so for him to receive that is quite an honor," said Robert Linz, associate director and head of public service for the Colorado Association of Law Libraries.

"He's really passionate about his work with the tribes, and in making that material available. He's also known as the expert researcher in that area."

Selden, who spent five years in Uganda as a child with his family, was exposed to cultures and tribes not many 7-year-olds, or adults for that matter, will see. Selden's father is an anthropologist.

"I gained a respect and interest in other people's values, and even though in many ways we're so different, we have a lot in common," he said.

David's work to promote sustainability in libraries and communities was highlighted in the announcement of the Merskey award, given by the University of Texas School of Law. The Special Libraries Association named him a Knowledge to Go Green Champion in 2009.

Open Secrets: Political Fruit of Labor in Capital Eye Opener: September 6

Dave Levinthal — 2010-09-06T15:21:04+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

FRUIT OF THEIR POLITICAL LABOR: While you're off grilling your brats or watching college football, consider this Labor Day that labor unions aren't pausing when it comes to politics.

Among political action committee contribution this election cycle to federal political candidates, four of the top 10 entities are labor union PACs: the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Operating Engineers Union; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and the International Association of Fire Fighters.

When overall PAC expenditures are considered this election cycle, six of the top 10 are labor union PACs. They are: the Service Employees International Union; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Teamsters Union; American Federation of Teachers and the Laborers Union.

Get ready for a shocking fact here: The overwhelming majority of the contributions directly from labor union interests to political candidates benefit Democrats.

But, perhaps, a less well-known factoid: Overtly labor union contributions to federal political candidates and committees represent just a small fraction of overall contributions -- 4 percent this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' research.

Individuals and political action committees associated with business and ideological groups represent the bulk of political contributions this cycle -- more than 80 percent.

Of course, some individuals who make political contributions may in reality be union members. But that's difficult to ascertain from federal records because such people generally list their employer and occupation -- not their union affiliation, or lack thereof -- per federal law.

Even if every such mystery union member were to somehow be tallied, corporate executives and managers still routinely generate the largest political donations, in large part because they're not making workman's wages.

OUR ACHING BACKS HAVE YOUR BACK: Keeping with the labor theme, who are the top federal-level recipients of labor's political cash?

Among U.S. Senate candidates this cycle, Democrats rule. Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania ranks first with more than $324,000, followed closely by Robin Carnahan of Missouri and Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.

It's not until the No. 33 slot that a Republican shows -- in the form of Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. And she isn't even a candidate any longer, having been offed late last month in a Republican primary by attorney Joe Miller.

Among U.S. House candidates, Democrats again run the labor table, with Rep. Scott Murphy of New York, Rep. Judy Chu of California and Mark Critz of Pennsylvania going gold, silver, bronze.

The list's first Republican: Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey in 49th place, good enough for Jamaican bobsled team status as it applies to labor cash competition.

CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS, IN THE NEWS: Numerous media outlets cited our research and reporting in the past few days. Among the reporters and outlets mentioning us: Katherine Skiba of the Chicago Tribune, Louis Aguilar at the Detroit News, Jason Noble at the Kansas City Star, Matt Canham at the Salt Lake Tribune, Bartholomew Sullivan at the (Memphis, Tenn.) Commercial Appeal, Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner, Molly K. Hooper at The Hill and KCBS Radio in San Francisco.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog: Jordan Hatcher talk on Open Data Licensing at iSemantics

2010-09-06T10:51:28+00:00

Last week, the Foundation’s legal expert Jordan Hatcher, was at iSemantic conference in Graz to give a session on open data licensing (especially for linked data). Here are the slides:

Linked Data Licensing: Introduction - I-Semantics 2010

View more presentations from jordanhatcher.

Open Secrets: Craigslist Leader, Under Government Fire for 'Adult Services' Postings, Financially Tied to Numerous Democrats

Dave Levinthal — 2010-09-05T22:33:20+00:00

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark -- under fire by government officials and others who believe his namesake website's "adult services" section facilitates prostitution and child sex trafficking -- has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and committees, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates.

What's less clear is whether any of the numerous Democrats, who have received handsome political contributions from Newmark, will distance themselves from those who operate the popular site. Craigslist serves as a virtual bulletin board for items mundane as event tickets and auto parts to "services" salacious as sexual rendezvous.

Since 2003, Newmark has made nearly $84,000 in political donations to prominent Democrats and Democratic political committees, the Center's research indicates. He has not donated to federal-level Republicans.

The Democratic National Committee is a top recipient of Newmark's cash, taking in $30,500 since the 2004 election cycle:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee follows, with $11,500 from Newmark:

DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer said Sunday afternoon he didn't have an immediate answer as to what, if anything, the party committee would do with Newmark's donations. A DNC representative could not be reached for comment.

Among political candidates, President Barack Obama is Newmark's top beneficiary, receiving $4,600. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who's locked in a competitive re-election campaign against former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina, has accepted $3,000 from Newmark. Spokespeople for Obama and Boxer could not be reached for comment.

Other politicos who've received four-figure donations from Newmark include Rep. Zoe Lofgren ($2,000), Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean ($2,000), congressional candidate Charles Brown of California ($2,000), Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota ($1,500), Rep. George Miller of California ($1,000), Rep. Nick Lampson of Texas ($1,000) and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois ($1,000).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) received a $500 contribution from Newmark in August 2009, federal records show. A number of other political candidates have likewise received three-figure sums from Newmark.

Craigslist.com this weekend removed its adult services section, replacing it with a single word, "censored." It's yet unknown whether this is a temporary or permanent move.

Connecticut Attorney Gen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate against Republican Linda McMahon, has largely led an effort among state attorneys general to pressure Craigslist into removing its adult services section. Federal records indicate that Newmark has not made a federally reportable donation to Blumenthal.

Newmark or another Craigslist representative could not be reached for comment.

But in a post on his personal website, Newmark recently wrote he and Craigslist Chief Executive Officer Jim Buckmaster are "pretty obsessed with trying to make the world a better place, and neither have much interest in possessions or fancy lifestyles. Me, I'll stick to my causes, like doing right by our veterans, keeping the faith on net neutrality and working toward better governance ... wish me luck, I'll need it."

Buckmaster, who has been particularly critical of CNN's coverage of Craigslist, has not made federally reportable political donations, federal records indicate.

=======

Editor's note: The Craigslist Charitable Fund this year made a $50,000 donation to the Sunlight Foundation, which is among the Center for Responsive Politics' institutional funders.

Open Secrets: Center for Responsive Politics Closed Monday to Observe Labor Day Holiday

Communications — 2010-09-05T18:09:38+00:00

The Center for Responsive Politics is closed Monday in observance of the Labor Day holiday.

Calls and e-mails to the Center made on Monday will be returned beginning Tuesday. If you are a reporter on deadline with an urgent question, you may call 817-917-4141 to reach the Center's on-call staffer.

Please check the Center's OpenSecrets Blog later today for breaking news updates and our daily morning report, Capital Eye Opener.

Open Secrets: National Democratic Party Committees Overtaking Republicans After Years Playing Financial Catch-up

Dave Levinthal — 2010-09-05T06:01:51+00:00

After many moons of financial second-fiddledom, national Democratic political committees find their fortunes waxing during these, the final weeks before crucial midterm elections in which Republicans hope to recapture numerous congressional seats.

Through July, the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee each enjoyed significant cash reserves that outpaced Republican counterparts, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of Federal Election Commission data indicates.

And two of the three national Democratic party committees -- the DCCC and DSCC -- had also spent more through July than their rival Republican committees. (The Republican National Committee through July had spent $159.7 million to the Democratic National Committee's $146.5 million.)

Such Democratic dollar dominance is a dramatic departure from not-too-distant history, when the three main Republican party committees routinely outspent their Democratic counterparts while also carrying notably more cash on hand.

During the 2002 midterms, for example, the three GOP committees ended the election cycle with a combined $65.9 million in reserve, compared to the three Democratic committees' $16.7 million, the Center's research shows. The chart below (click on it to enlarge) illustrates the shift:

Gone, too, are the election cycles when Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee spending obliterated that of their Democratic foes.

Although the three national Republican committees together maintained a narrow edge over the Democratic committees going into August -- $274.3 million to $267.4 million -- the advantage is paltry compared to the 2002 and 2006 midterm cycles.

In 2002, the Republican committees spent more than $2 for every $1 their Democratic rivals spent. During the 2006 cycle, the percentage gap between the two parties had narrowed, but the Republican committees still outspent the Democrats by nearly $127 million:

The question, however, remains: Will the Republican committees' financial downturn harm the GOP's opportunity to steal congressional seats from a Democrat-controlled Congress dogged by a persistently lousy economy, passage of contentious health care and financial reform bills and ethics scandals involving Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)?

While Democrats are banking it will, the proliferation and strengthening of Republican-leaning political organizations not directly associated with the national party committees could prove a boon for some GOP candidates.

Consider that just a few conservative organizations -- American Crossroads, American Solutions Winning the Future, College Republican National Committee -- have already spent tens of millions of dollars on the midterm elections through their 527 committees. Dozens of corporate and special interest political action committees are together donating millions of dollars to Republican candidates.

Recent changes in federal campaign finance law, stemming in particular from the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission federal court decisions, also may benefit the GOP.

Exhibit A: The rise of "independent expenditure-only committees," which courts say may raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals to fuel their efforts in opposing or supporting specific candidates. Our own Michael Beckel details this phenomenon here.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times, which draws upon the Center's research, today files this story further explaining what obstacles Democrats and Republicans both face ahead of November elections.

Center for Responsive Politics Senior Researcher Doug Weber contributed to this report.

Computational Legal Studies: Law as a Complex Adaptive System: An Updated Reading List / Syllabus

2010-09-05T05:58:08+00:00

As a new semester is here at Michigan CSCS, I have made several revisions to the content of our global reading list for the Computational Legal Studies Working Group. The content of the interdisciplinary reading list features work from economics, physics, sociology, biology, computer science, political science, public policy, theoretical and empirical legal studies and applied math. I wanted to highlight this reading list for anyone who is interesting in learning more about the state of the literature in this interdisciplinary space. Also, for those interested in learning model implementation, please consult my my slides from the 2010 ICPSR Course Introduction to Computing for Complex Systems. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.