smokeymischief

Today NPR\'s Planet Money team aired a story about disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s legal lobbying activities (as few of those as there may have been), highlighting how problematic even currently legal lobbying practices are. Also today, the New York Times pointed out some of the huge loopholes in current lobbying law -- Newt Gingrich, for example, isn’t actually a lobbyist, he just spends lots of his time talking to lawmakers about how policy should be made. Y’know, as a historian.

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

Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who have reportedly given a combined $10 million to Winning Our Future, the super PAC that supports and is run by former staffers of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, were reportedly drawn to him by a shared view of the importance of the U.S. relationship to Israel.

The Sunlight Foundation is proud to present three Roku apps for streaming audio-visual content from the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court!

The Google Analytics URL Builder is a simple tool that helps you track traffic statistics for specific campaign related links. The tool works by adding parameters to a link from a page on your site that you then track using Google Analytics. When running an advertising or social media campaign, this is incredibly handy for tracking your ROI.

An analysis of campaign contribution records by the Sunlight Foundation reveals that the number of donors in the FIRE sector giving at least $10,000 (in 2010 dollars) per cycle to political candidates, parties, and independent expenditure groups has increased from 1,091 in 1990 to 5,510 in 2010 (a 405% increase). These elite FIRE sector donors’ combined contributions have increased even more dramatically, growing by $162.8 million (a 700% increase, controlling for inflation) to $178.2 million in 2010.

The House of Representatives has released an agenda for its all-day Legislative Data Conference, set for February 2nd. If you are interested in attending.