Planet oGosh! Open Government Open Source Hacking

Just look at any one of Sunlight’s projects and you’ll realize that it takes a mountain of data to help keep government open and transparent.  From district information to campaign expenditures to lobbying dollars, making sense of large data sets is an intensive, concerted effort.

Many of your own projects use dozens of spreadsheets, take up thousands of rows of data and live somewhere on our laptop, accessible only to you.  This works to a point, but in an era of sharing, collaborating and web-based storage, it isn’t an optimal solution.

Google Fusion Tables is an experimental project from Google Labs with the goal of making sharing and collaborating on large sets of data much simpler.  Fusion Tables isn’t focused on the traditional database system that requires “complicated SQL queries and transaction processing,” but is rather focused on “fusing data management and collaboration: merging multiple data sources, discussion of the data, querying, visualization, and web publishing.”

Google Fusion Tables allows you handle large amounts of data: you can upload files of up to 100 MB in formats like Excel, CSV and KML. You can also programmatically update, delete, query and visualize data using their API. Plus, you can merge your own data with existing public sets, allowing you to add further value and context to your own information.

While Fusion Tables is an experimental Google project, it shows great potential in allowing the less technically savvy to easily leverage large data sets while communicating and collaborating much more effortlessly.

For more information, check out the video and related links below -

• Fusion Tables API
• Fusion Tables Examples
• Fusion Tables User Group

San Francisco’s aggressive open data efforts were on display this week, as civic and technology leaders took the stage at sf.govfresh, an event highlighting technology innovation in City government. City CIO Chris Vein (who also was recently interviewed by ideation solutions firm BrightIdea) and Department of Technology innovations manager Jay Nath explained how the City is leveraging innovators in and out of government to create a culture that creates valuable new applications at little to no cost. Jay’s presentation on Open 311 APIs is here.
The event on Wednesday night also features several local developers who’ve built mobile and Web applications using open data from San Francisco and other government agencies. These included Routsey, MomMaps, and Crimespotting. You can find the entire catalogue of apps built with SF data at the SF Innovations Showcase.
Lawrence Grodeska, pictured, of SF Environment, explained efforts to create a common standard for apps focused on recycling information and called on local developers to submit proposals to develop the next generation of SF’s “EcoFinder.”
Also on Wednesday, I was on air for John Moore’s Social Ecosystem Lab podcast to talk about the SF City Attorney’s social media programs and broader open government efforts in San Francisco. You can listen to that interview here.

- Adriel Hampton

As we set the stage for advocating on local and state transparency issues and highlight some policies issues of note, inevitably the question comes:

How exactly do you go about learning more about policies in your state?

Whether you’ve already picked a policy focus, want to learn more about what role open government policies could play in your state, or are just chasing curiosity, you need to answer this question. To make your search for answers clearer — more transparent if you will — we’ve laid out a series of questions for you to ask to help get you started with your research.

ONE: What issue area do I focus on?

In our last episode of Transparency in a Box, John laid out three issue areas that will be of interest to many state advocates: ethics and campaign finance, budget transparency, and legislative data. Depending upon which policy you choose there are different resources that outline the answers to a crucial question for your research:

What information does the government currently provide about this policy? Or, what’s knowable from your government?

The answer to this question will vary by state and issue. If you’re interested in learning about how to determine what the situation is in your state for ethics and campaign finance, jump down to TWO. If you’re looking to do research on budget transparency, jump to THREE. And for your legislative data needs, head to FOUR. For general open government resources, jump to FIVE.

TWO: How can I figure out what information is available for ethics and campaign finance?

Where to look: Your state likely has a department of government that oversees campaign finance laws, either as part of the office of its Secretary of State or Board of Elections. (For a good example, check out Michigan’s site for Lobbying Disclosure.) Personal Financial Disclosures can be harder to find and are sometimes available from a statewide ethics office. (See Florida’s example. ) For a beginning look at your state’s code of law, the Library of Congress provides some great links, though you may need to do an additional search to find out your state’s ethics regulations. And while not a perfect resource, you should also play with CREW’s Ethics in Your State tool. Although the corruption rankings are two years old, you’ll find helpful resources for groups working on ethics and campaign finance in your state along with media resources that might help give you a greater sense of your state’s situation.

What to look for: You can focus on one of the three policies below or search for information on all of them. In each instance, you’ll want to find out whether these things are actually available and if so, how much information is provided to the public and how much is online:

• Personal Financial Disclosures
• Campaign Contributions
• Lobbying Disclosure

How this policy is enacted: Campaign finance policies are determined by the passage of laws or by executive orders. Finding this sort of information will do a lot to tell you about why things are the way they are now, which is important to understand if you’re interested in working to make this policy more transparent.

THREE: How can I figure out the transparency of my state’s budget?

Where to look: Your state’s budget portal. If you’re unable to find what you’re looking for there, try looking for more information on your governor or comptroller general’s website. Although you should always go the source (i.e. your state’s official website) there are other sites that can help inform your search and understanding. For instance, check out this resource from the Center for Fiscal Accountability, which hosts useful links and news about budget transparency, listed by state. The Sunshine Review also posts a guide to budget transparency listed by state.

What to look for: Are budget proposals posted online in addition to actual expenditures? How timely or complete is the publishing? Does your state have an open website for its budget/spending?

How this policy is enacted: Many states (but not all) have an online budget portal that shows how money is spent. These portals could be enacted by law, but are more likely based on an initiative from your governor or your comptroller general who can build such a site when made a gubernatorial priority.

Related to this portal is the general process by which your state sets its spending priorities. This system can vary from one state to another, but generally involves your governor submitting a proposal for a budget and your legislature eventually approving it. The actual process, from submission to approval, is incredibly complex with a number of open and secret negotiations.

FOUR: How can I figure out what legislative data my state publishes?

Where to look: The official source of legislative information in your state, most likely your state legislature’s website, which you can find quickly on this comprehensive list. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) The Library of Congress also publishes a resource on state laws that should help your search. Each state page includes links for that state’s bills and legislative session laws. The Open States Project is also working on collecting a variety of legislative data for each state and may be a good source for research or collaboration.

What to look for: Keeping in mind that there are variety of ways to interpret “legislative data transparency” (which John goes into more detail with in his post), two to focus on:

1. Look to see if your state legislature posts its bills, amendments, and votes online. See whether the information is searchable and what the timeline is that your state uses for posting these documents online. Does your legislature note whether bills have to be online before a vote? If so, how long before?

2. You should also check to see how the state is making its legislative data available. This is the more technical side, but it’s crucial to creating innovative web platforms that can aggregate and share bills, votes, and amendments. Most states display bills and other legislation in HTML; others post actual data files in order to empower more advanced analysis and reuse. For a great example of open government work in this field, see the New York State Senate, a leader in making raw data available to developers.

If you’re having problems searching for information on this subject on your legislature’s website, you may have to turn to your search engine of choice. Use a combination of keywords including your state’s name and phrases like “legislative data,” “general assembly data,” “data system,” and “online.” Your search results may turn up a free resource (see Rhode Island’s example) or a proprietary one. Look for contact information from an associated government official to learn more.

How this policy is enacted: Legislative data is controlled by legislative procedure and changes to existing policy may require a change of your assembly or chamber’s rules, or may also be able to be changed by an initiative of the technical staff of the legislature.

FIVE: Where can I learn more about general states-related open government stuff?

There are number of resources scattered around out there, but a good place to start is to check out the work of organizations within your state. This directory of state and national organizations is a great place to find out about who’s already working on issues in your state and what issues they focus on. My colleague, Sarah, is also compiling a review of state transparency efforts. Check back to see how your state is doing.

While not an open government site, per say, this digest of state laws, hosted by the Library of Congress (mentioned above) is a great “one-stop” source for state-specific government sites. Head here when you’re looking for pages listing your state’s bills, legislative session laws, and other odds and ends.

OpenMuni Wiki is a collaborative platform where people share case studies and best practices for open government policy and advocacy. Although the site started with a more local focus, it has since expanded to include state-level concerns and should be turned especially when you’re looking into open standards for government data. If you’re looking for even more ideas or inspiration from the work others are doing around the country, OpenMuni offers a great list of like minded efforts. Poking around these groups will show you the lay of the open government land and again provides the opportunity to collaborate on ongoing transparency projects. Similarly, check out CityCamp to see how folks working on a municipal level are actively gathering public officials, citizens, and experts of every sort together to problem solve local transparency issues. Getting involved with a CityCamp can be a great way to connect with people already in the field.

This post only gives you an tiny view of all the work being done to get transparency for different levels of governance. There is still a great need to organize for change on a state level, and to be successful these transparency initiatives need to communicate with one another. If you do decide to join an open government group or to craft your own initiative, post your efforts where others can find and connect with you and your work. We host an open government projects page so that you can archive your work, ask questions of your peers in the field, and check out the work others are doing, though connecting with folks over Govloop or OpenMuni will be useful to you, too.

Have a favorite open government site that I missed? Please (!) share it with us below. (Extra points if it has a state focus.)

Reason Magazine’s Radley Balko draws attention to secrecy at the Fairfax County, Alexandria, and Arlington Police Departments.

The Fairfax, Alexandria, and Arlington police departments are among the least transparent in the country. Their application of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act allows them to turn down nearly all requests for information, as was made clear by a series of reports by reporter Michael Pope.

There is obviously something wrong here. With Freedom of Information Acts, the presumption should be on disclosure. Unlike some instances of information withholding, the officials of these departments seem to be well aware of the fact that they are infringing on citizens’ right to information. Their attitude says it all, according to Balko:

Police were not only stingy with information; they were smug and arrogant about it. When asked why she couldn’t release the name of a Virginia police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man last November, Fairfax County police spokeswoman Mary Ann Jennings replied, “What does the name of an officer give the public in terms of information and disclosure? I’d be curious to know why they want the name of an officer.”

The attitude of the spokeswoman is completely opposed to citizens’ rights. There are exemptions to the Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA), and there are instances where the case can be made for withholding information.

But the department isn’t making a case. It is claiming its authority as an excuse to keep information that is public by its nature secret, such as a public official’s name, because it can. And it doesn’t have to answer to you.

There’s more information to better paint the attitude of these departments:

After [reporter Michael] Pope’s first article on the lack of disclosure, Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Randolph Sengel, the city’s elected chief prosecutor, responded with a sneering, condescending letter to the editor brimming with contempt for outsiders who try to hold law enforcement agencies accountable. “Last time I checked there were multiple safeguards in place to assure the integrity of the criminal justice system,” Sengel wrote. “Conscientious and dedicated judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and law enforcement officers work in a system which is as transparent as it needs to be…The sacred ‘right of the public to know’ is still (barely) governed by standards of reasonableness and civility.”

The “right of the public to know” is in quotes.

The public does have a right to know. And this right is, basically, sacred. The government is directly accountable to taxpayers. While checks are in place within to make sure public bodies act ethically, the most important check is the ability we have as citizens to demand answers from the people we pay to look after our interests.

Here’s hoping the hard work of Virginia reporters, like Mr. Pope, continues shining light on irresponsible police departments’.

I'm sure you've heard of adopt-a-highway programs but have you heard of OSTI's adopt-a-doc program?

 OSTI, the US Dept. of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information, provides public access to over 2.6 million science research reports and citations published by Department of Energy (and predecessor) organizations.  These include technical reports, journal articles, conference papers and other materials.

OSTI's done a great job of digitizing copies of the technical reports published by its National Labs and other organizations.  (Journal articles and conference papers are generally excluded due to copyright restrictions).

But it hasn't scanned them all.  There are more than 250,000 DOE technical reports in need of digitization, and that's where adopt-a-doc comes into play. 

If you find reference to a non-digitized technical report (not journal article or conference paper) in, for example, the Energy Citations Database, you can search for that title on the adopt-a-doc page to confirm it is "adoptable", and then sponsor the digitization of that report for $85, the cost of ordering a hard copy.   

In this way the report becomes available not just to you but also to all other researchers and members of the public.  If you'd like, an electronic  sponsor certificate or acknowledgement in honor of someone else will become part of the document for all to see.

What a great way to make important research available to those who need it! --Nora

 

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

REPUBLICANS LEAD IN POLLS AND TOTAL MONEY RAISED: A new Gallup poll gives Republicans their largest lead ever -- a 10-point spread, 51 percent to 41 percent --- in Gallup’s tracking of midterm elections, which dates back to 1942. But GOP candidates are also leading the race in another arena: campaign funding.

So far, Republican Senate candidates have raised a total of $234 million in the 2010 election cycle, compared to $226 million raised by Democratic candidates. In House races, Democrats are trailing $355 million to the $361 million raised by Republican candidates this election cycle.

However, Democrats in both House and Senate races are leading in total cash on hand as of Aug. 31, holding just more than a $1-million advantage on the Senate side and a $72-million edge in total cash on hand  in House races.

Both parties have, so far, spent more on the more numerous House contests. While Republican candidates have out-spent Democratic candidates $247 million to $220 million in House races, Democratic Senate candidates have spent more than $161 million, compared to Republican candidates who have spent more than $155 million.  Last week, OpenSecrets Blog broke down the monthly fund-raising hauls of these six committees so far this year.

FORMER GOOGLE ALLY CRITICIZES POLICY PROPOSAL BUT KEEPS CAMPAIGN CASH: Two-and-a-half years ago, Google, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt praised Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) as “almost the perfect example of a congressperson” in a 2008 policy discussion that focused in large part on the importance of net neutrality. Since then, Google personnel have donated $7,900 to Eshoo’s campaign during the 2010 election cycle, including $4,500 from the company’s political action committee.

However, Eshoo, pictured right, a member of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, has criticized Google and Verizon’s joint policy proposal that would allow Internet service providers to offer “additional or differentiated services” on mobile networks, giving users that pay for premium content priority mobile Internet access.

Eshoo formalized her discontent with Google earlier this month, signing onto a joint letter to the Federal Communications Commission, which reads “Rather than an expansion upon a proposal by two large companies with a vested financial interest in the outcome, formal FCC action is needed.”

NEW RULES FOR NEW YORK CHANGE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS: New York City may be home to billionaires, international corporations and Wall Street titans, but a new examination of the city’s 2009 elections show that the most important player may have been the public.

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg retained his job, pouring $108 million of his own money into his reelection campaign, several incumbents were upset on the heels of a wave of small individual donations.

Due to a change in local campaign finance law, the city now matches donations of $175 or less at a 6-to-1 ratio. This, for example, turns a $100 donation into a $700 donation. In 2009, these smaller individual donations skyrocketed, and 70 percent of all donations made were $175 or less. In addition, more than 34,000 citizens made their first campaign contributions during the 2009 election cycle.  

Meanwhile, donations from businesses, unions and political committees plummeted, accounting for only 7.2 percent of funds available to candidates opting to utilize public campaign finance in 2009. In 2005, these sources made up two-thirds of public funds available to candidates.

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

This has not been a kind year for campaign finance reformers.

Setting aside the now-famous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling from the Supreme Court, which allowed corporations and unions to spend freely on campaign advertisements, there has been a flurry of challenges to other campaign finance laws in the courts.

Although several of these challenges were filed before the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, that decision encouraged opponents of campaign finance reform to push their challenges even further, according to experts on campaign finance cases.

These ongoing lawsuits have challenged three broad sections of campaign finance law: corporate spending restrictions, public financing of candidates and disclosure laws.

Supporters of reform have seen some success against challenges to restrictions on soft money contributions. But public funding for candidates has been stymied in several cases, even in the middle of campaign season.

Campaign finance legal experts say that disclosure laws are the least vulnerable to challenges in the courts.

“It’s sort of been a lot of clouds with some silver lining for campaign finance reformers,” said Tara Malloy, associate counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, in reference to success in disclosure cases. The Campaign Legal Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that provides analysis of a campaign legal issues and government ethics.

On other corporate spending cases, the rulings have been mixed. In Republican National Commitee v. Federal Election Commission, the same court that decided Citizens United reaffirmed a lower court’s ruling that upheld a law banning “soft money” contributions to political parties.

Other cases, such as SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission, gave groups the green light to raise unlimited sums from individuals for independent expenditure committees -- a subtle difference from the Citizens United case, which involved only independent expenditures funded from corporate treasuries. The same issue is at play in Thalheimer v. San Diego, which touches upon restrictions for both corporate money and large donations from individuals for independent expenditures.

And recent lower court rulings in Connecticut, Arizona and Florida overturned parts of the states’ systems of public financing, targeting the trigger mechanisms that sent state dollars to a publicly funded candidate if an opponent’s spending passed a certain threshold. 

Loyola College of Law professor Rick Hasen, who runs ElectionLawBlog.com, is part of the team defending the city of San Diego in the Thalheimer v. San Diego case. He said the case is part of a wider plan by opponents of campaign finance laws to weaken regulations in the wake of Citizens United.

Hasen specifically called out attorney Jim Bopp, who has argued for many high-profile campaign finance cases, including Republican National Committee v. Federal Election Commission and Citizens United before it got to the Supreme Court.

“There’s no mystery to what’s going on,” Hasen said. “These groups have seen Citizens United as an opening to challenge a variety of campaign finance laws to try to push the courts in a deregulatory direction.”

Bopp, however, told OpenSecrets Blog that he is not undertaking a major effort to overturn campaign finance law -- he just represents many clients who frequently run up against laws that prevent them from speaking about public policy decisions.

“It’s just naturally part of my practice that these controversies would arise because of the nature of the clients that I have,” he said.

He agreed the Citizens United ruling made campaign finance laws vulnerable to more challenges.

“We always seek to apply the current state of the law to any challenges of campaign finance law that we make,” he said.

Bopp is also involved in cases challenging disclosure laws for groups supporting gay rights-related ballot measures in Maine and California. He is further involved in a Vermont case challenging the state’s classification of a group opposing abortion rights as a political action committee.

Members of Congress have attempted to adopt responses to the changing legal landscape of campaign finance with the DISCLOSE Act, which would add new reporting requirements for independent expenditures, and the Fair Elections Now Act, a voluntary public financing program that would dole out federal campaign funds to candidates who raise enough small-amount donations in their home state.

So far, such efforts have stalled.

The Fair Elections Now Act has not made it out of committee. And while the House passed the DISCLOSE Act in June, Republican senators have so far blocked it in Congress’ upper chamber.

In challenges such as Doe v. Reed, another Bopp case, litigants have turned to battling disclosure law as well.

The Doe v. Reed case resolves around whether the names of supporters of a ballot initiative to block domestic partnership rights in Washington state should be made public or not.

The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected Bopp’s arguments that all ballot measure petition-signers had the right to have their names kept secret, as OpenSecrets Blog previously reported. The high court left open the possibility that these particular ballot measure petition-signers might have that ability, however, and the case is still being litigated in lower courts.

“They might just now be turning to disclosure because sadly now that is what’s left,” said Malloy, of the Campaign Legal Center.

Among the cases currently still pending before the Supreme Court is McComish v. Bennett, which challenged Arizona’s public financing mechanism.

In May, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state’s “trigger provision” was constitutional. But a month later, the Supreme Court issued an unusual stay in the case. The decision changed the state’s election laws mid-race while the court decides whether or not to take up the case.

“It’s not clear whether or not the Supreme Court is done with its deregulatory project,” Malloy said.

The newly funded and revived Administrative Conference of the United States now has a website at www.acus.gov. The site opens with a condensed history of the agency:

With the Senate's confirmation of Paul Verkuil as Chairman, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) has been re-established after an absence of over 14 years. ACUS was created in 1968 as an independent agency of the federal government, for the purpose of developing recommendations to improve the fairness and effectiveness of the rulemaking, adjudication, licensing, and investigative functions of federal agency programs. Funding was suspended by Congress in late 1995.

I miss the usual statement of mission, but the site links to Title V, section 591 for this purpose.

Currently, the Web site is strong on historical information. It features a bibliography [PDF] of works for 1968-1995 and Code of Federal Regulations citations to historic ACUS recommendations (courtesy the American Bar Association archive at Florida State University College of Law).

We will watch this space.

Related DGI Bog post, The Administrative Conference of the U.S. is Back.

What are some of the key takeaway points?

(1) The Supreme Court’s increasing reliance upon its own decisions over the 1800-1830 window.

(2) The important role of maritime/admiralty law in the early years of the Supreme Court’s citation network. At least with respect to the Supreme Court’s citation network, these maritime decisions are the root of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence.

(3) The increasing centrality of decisions such as Marbury v. Madison, Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee to the overall network.

The Development of Structure in the SCOTUS Citation Network

The visualization offered above is the largest weakly connected component of the citation network of the United States Supreme Court (1800-1829). Each time slice visualizes the aggregate network as of the year in question.

In our paper entitled Distance Measures for Dynamic Citation Networks, we offer some thoughts on the early SCOTUS citation network. In reviewing the visual above note ….“[T]he Court’s early citation practices indicate a general absence of references to its own prior decisions. While the court did invoke well-established legal concepts, those concepts were often originally developed in alternative domains or jurisdictions. At some level, the lack of self-reference and corresponding reliance upon external sources is not terribly surprising. Namely, there often did not exist a set of established Supreme Court precedents for the class of disputes which reached the high court. Thus, it was necessary for the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court, seen through the prism of its case-to-case citation network, to transition through a loading phase. During this loading phase, the largest weakly connected component of the graph generally lacked any meaningful clustering. However, this sparsely connected graph would soon give way, and by the early 1820’s, the largest weakly connected component displayed detectable structure.”

What are the elements of the network?

What are the labels?

To help orient the end-user, the visualization highlights several important decisions of the United States Supreme Court offered within the relevant time period:

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) we labeled as ”Marbury”
Murray v. The Charming Betsey, 6 U.S. 64 (1804) we labeled as “Charming Betsey”
Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 14 U.S. 304 (1816) we labeled as “Martin’s Lessee”
The Anna Maria, 15 U.S. 327 (1817) we labeled as “Anna Maria”
McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819) we labeled as “McCulloch”

Why do cases not always enter the visualization when they are decided?

As we are interested in the core set of cases, we are only visualizing the largest weakly connected component of the United States Supreme Court citation network. Cases are not added until they are linked to the LWCC. For example, Marbury v. Madison is not added to the visualization until a few years after it is decided.

How do I best view the visualization?

Given this is a high-definition video, it may take few seconds to load. We believe that it is worth the wait. In our view, the video is best consumed (1) Full Screen (2) HD On (3) Scaling Off.

Where can I find related papers?

Here is a non-exhaustive list of related scholarship:

Michael Bommarito, Daniel Katz, Jon Zelner & James Fowler, Distance Measures for Dynamic Citation Networks, Physica A __ (2010 Forthcoming).

Yonatan Lupu & James Fowler, The Strategic Content Model of Supreme Court Opinion Writing, APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper.

Michael Bommarito, Daniel Katz & Jon Zelner, Law as a Seamless Web? Comparison of Various Network Representations of the United States Supreme Court Corpus (1791-2005) in Proceedings of the 12th Intl. Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (2009).

Frank Cross, Thomas Smith & Antonio Tomarchio, The Reagan Revolution in the Network of Law, 57 Emory L. J. 1227 (2008).

James Fowler & Sangick Jeon, The Authority of Supreme Court Precedent, 30 Soc. Networks 16 (2008).

Elizabeth Leicht, Gavin Clarkson, Kerby Shedden & Mark Newman, Large-Scale Structure of Time Evolving Citation Networks, 59 European Physics Journal B 75 (2007).

Thomas Smith, The Web of the Law, 44 San Diego L.R. 309 (2007).

James Fowler, Timothy R. Johnson, James F. Spriggs II, Sangick Jeon & Paul J. Wahlbeck, Network Analysis and the Law: Measuring the Legal Importance of Precedents at the U.S. Supreme Court, 15 Political Analysis, 324 (2007).
_

Related posts:

1. The Development of Structure in the Citation Network of the United States Supreme Court
2. The Development of Structure in the Citation Network of the United States Supreme Court — Now in HD!
3. Visualizing Temporal Patterns in the United States Supreme Court’s Network of Citations

Today the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released their first report on the topic of Web 2.0 and social media. A NARA records management team talked with representatives from 25 federal agencies about their use of these tools; their findings are the basis for A Report on Federal Web 2.0 Use and Record Value [PDF]. The report provides a succinct and insightful analysis of federal agencies' internal and external use of Web 2.0 tools, and it enumerates issues in need of attention. From the report:

The study identifies characteristics of the information that is found in web 2.0 formats and how those characteristics affect the value of the information. It also provides a basis for determining whether Federal records created using web 2.0 tools should be retained for a temporary period of time or are permanent and ultimately transferred to the National Archives.

This study does not describe or dictate how to schedule or manage web 2.0 records. It does not focus on specific technological issues, identify permanent web 2.0 records, or assess any specific NARA or agency policy or guidance. This study does note key management issues that participating agencies addressed through the course of the study.

 

Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) recently introduced legislation that would make it a lot easier for the public to access thousands of congressionally mandated reports. These reports are created when Congress requires agencies to give an accounting of their actions or plans for addressing a particular issue. Once received by Congress, the reports become House or Senate documents, and often provide valuable insight into what the federal government is (or should be) doing.

House documents, according to the Clerk of the House, originate from congressional committees and including annual reports of executive departments, investigative reports made to congress, presidential messages, and other similar publications. (House or Senate documents should not to be confused with House or Senate reports, which are prepared by congressional committees on proposed legislation and issues under investigation.) Rep. Dreihaus’ bill applies to congressionally mandated reports only.

Not all congressionally mandated reports are available online. Electronic access would put more eyes on each document, thereby enhancing their usefulness as oversight documents. My colleague John Wonderlich earlier wrote about how these reports can inform committee oversight plans. Rep. Dreihaus’ spokesman Tim Mulvey explains that “The reason Congress passes laws mandating these reports is so the American people can understand how their government works, and where it may not be working so well.” Driehaus, who sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, believes this bill could play a vital role in educating the public on what the government does.

At the beginning of each Congress, the Clerk of the House generates (pursuant to House Rule II) a report entitled “Reports to be Made to Congress,” which lists all congressionally mandated reports. It cites the law or resolution in which the requirement may be contained and placing under the name of each officer the list of reports required to be made by such officer.

While the report itself is available through GPO (here’s the 235-page report submitted in the 111th Congress: [PDF]) all of the reports it identifies are not. The GPO makes an effort to make these documents available online, but they don’t get everything. In addition, even when the documents are online, they are often difficult to find. For a closer look, check out the GPO’s index of congressional documents and search engine.

The Access to Congressional Mandated Reports Act, or H.R. 6026, would resolve several problems. The bill requires the director of the Office of Management and Budget to create a central website that will let the public access congressionally mandated reports. The legislation would mandate improved search functionality so that people can find the documents, allow people to be notified when a particular document becomes available, and require public access to the report within 30 days. In addition, OMB would be required to issue regulations to the agencies on how they should submit reports, which must be in electronic format.

Rep. Dreihaus has the right idea. Reps. Towns and Clay agree, as they’ve co-sponsored the legislation. Congressionally mandated reports (with few exceptions) should be available online, and I would add that congressionally documents should be published online as a general rule. Creating deadlines for the reports to be available, requiring electronic formats, and improving access to the public are all excellent ideas.

I do have a few minor quibbles. OMB has experience issuing regulations to make this kind of effort succeed, but it would be unconventional for their regulations to apply to independent agencies or the legislative or judicial branches. Similarly, it is more common for the Clerk or the Library of Congress or some other entity under congressional control to house congressional documents, instead of OMB, which is an arm of the President. Nevertheless, this legislation is a smart move in the right direction toward making government more open, transparent, and accountable.

Eric Naing contributed significantly to the writing and researching of this article.

Almost every politician in California was ready to jump on the “Let’s bash Bell” bandwagon, but now that legislation calling for salary transparency is in the senate, political officials are balking. The latest legislation would require that both municipal employees post their salaries online and state level employees as well.

The California senators are considering addressing the issue with an internal rule, which would be more flexible and easily changed.

If the California legislature was so eager to expose municipal salaries, then they should also be comfortable placing the same transparency standards on themselves. The legislature should worry less about how it’ll reflect on their campaigns, and more about what is right for Californian constituents.

August just flew by didn't it? And that means it's time to introduce our next blogger of the month. So welcome to the FGI podium Nathan Yang. Nathan is a Ph.D candidate in Economics at the University of Toronto. Although his thesis is about industry dynamics and social learning, he has recently done some research on why politicians adopt Twitter. Take it away Nathan.

And thanks also to Emily Keller, our August blogger from the University of Washington!!

Over a year ago we announced our intention to build scrapers that would collect and sanitize legislative information from all fifty states, an initiative that is now known as the Open State Project. (formerly the Fifty State Project)

Since we put out the proposal we've had more than 25 developers contribute code, and we now have scrapers in various states of completion for approximately 30 states. Soon after beginning the project we learned that collecting the data isn't enough, we have found that after the scrapers run there is still work to be done: name standardization, adapting for different naming conventions across states, and attempting to match legislators to their IDs on websites such as FollowTheMoney.org and Project Vote Smart.

As of today we're proud to announce a new milestone for the project, version 1 of the Open State Project API. You can start using our API today to get access to information on more than 37,000 bills and 1,600 legislators from the most recent sessions of 10 state legislatures.

About the API

Our API makes it possible to get at all of the data that we currently collect. For most states this means legislators, committees, and bills including their actions, votes, and links to full text versions. We've spent time building a flexible infrastructure that allows us to collect extra data where it is available and pass it on, while still providing a common subset across all states we provide.

If you visit our API status page you'll see that we are launching with five states that we consider "ready" (shown in green). These five states: Maryland, Texas, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and California are our trial five states and while there's no such thing as perfect data we have made a commitment to keeping these five as up to date as possible and will give the highest priority to any data quality issues we encounter in them.

We are also making data for five additional states available in an experimental state (shown in orange). We believe that the data for these states (Vermont, North Carolina, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Nevada) is of high quality and ready for public use but haven't had the time to vet it quite as thoroughly as data from states deemed "ready". If you decide to use data from these states don't be surprised if you notice a few more rusty edges in the data for these experimental states.

If you're ready to get started with the API all you'll need is a Sunlight API Key (if you already have a key for our Congress API, Transparency Data, or Drumbone you can use that).

After that you may find the following links to be helpful:

• Open State API Documentation
• Python Client Library
• Open State Project Issue Tracker
• Open State Project Google Group

Finally, we'd like to acknowledge that given the size of this undertaking and this project wouldn't be possible without all of the volunteers that have helped by contributing code. A special thank you to contributors Michael Stephens, Mark Olson, 2010 Summer of Code student Gabriel Joel Pérez, and former Sunlight Labs intern Dan Schneiderman as well as everyone else in the AUTHORS file.

If you'd like to help us get the next 40 states ready join the Open State Project Google Group and introduce yourself, we're always looking for help and will be happy to help you find a place your skills will benefit the project.

For every diamond-clad money-in-politics rule, there's an exception. 

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:

• The Office of Congressional Ethics asked the House ethics committee to investigate Reps. Tom Price (R-GA), John Campbell (R-CA), and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) over fundraisers held in connection to the financial regulation bill. (The Washington Post) (The Hill) (Roll Call)($) (National Journal)($)
• A Boston developer has been indicted for illegally funnelling campaign contributions to Massachusetts lawmakers. (Roll Call)($)
• The AP looked at the $16.3 million spent by bailed-out banks on lobbying in the first half of this year. (The Washington Post)
• The The Food and Drug Administration launched a new dashboard that tracks the performance of offices in the agency. (nextgov)
• The defeat of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in her primary election bucks several trends regarding money in politics. (Open Secrets)

Relevant committee hearings scheduled for 9/1:

• None

Relevant bills introduced:

• None

Transparency events scheduled for 9/1:

• None

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

Three more cases are sent to the ethics committee, Reid hopes to get an energy bill through the Senate after the midterms, and more in today’s Congress links.

• The Office of Congressional Ethics has referred three cases to the House ethics committee, recommending investigations of Representatives John Campbell [R-CA], Joseph Crowley [D-NY], and Tom Price [R-GA]. (The New York Times)
• The Brookings Institute reports that many Congressional websites are “suboptimal” and that “web site design often appears to be at most a secondary priority” among members of Congress. (Federal Computer Week)
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] promises to “leave no veteran behind” (The Hill), the day after Alan Simpson, GOP co-chairman of President Obama’s fiscal commission, questioned veteran benefits and said veterans are “not helping” with the country’s fiscal problems (The Hill)
• Senators Chuck Schumer [D-NY] and Max Baucus [D-MT] both expressed their disappointment at the Commerce Department’s failure to investigate China’s currency manipulation. (Senatus)
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] says he hopes to get some Republican votes for an energy bill after the elections, though he admits cap-and-trade was unlikely to be re-included. (Reuters)
• 372 bills passed by the House are still awaiting Senate action. It’s likely that many of them will never be passed by the current Senate, and will have to be re-introduced when the next Congress begins. (The Hill)

Many thanks to Anne Jonas, of the Participatory Culture Foundation and Miro project, for the Congressional websites tip. Image of Max Baucus from Daylife.

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

• Millions of lobbying dollars were still being spent on the health care issue months after the the health care bill was passed by Congress and signed into law. (Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group)
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will fundraise tomorrow in the office of a California solar energy firm that received $1.37 billion in federal loan guarantees this year. (Party Time)
• 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)

Having pushed aside energy/oil spill legislation until the lame-duck session, the weeks between when Congress reconvenes from the August recess on September 13 and before they adjourn for election season in October will be focused on one thing — saving the U.S. economy from slipping deeper into recession.

There’s a small business jobs bill on tap (H.R. 5297), a vague plan to do something with the expiring Bush tax cuts, and now, according to the Wall Street Journal, a new jobs package from the Obama Administration:

The Obama administration is considering a range of new measures to boost economic growth, including tax cuts and a new nationwide infrastructure program, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The president’s economic team has met frequently in recent days to list ways to bolster the struggling recovery, according to government officials.

On the list of possible actions: additional tax cuts for small businesses beyond those included in a $30 billion small-business lending bill before the Senate. It’s not clear what those tax breaks would target or how much they might cost in lost revenue to the government.

Also in the mix: a possible payroll tax cut for businesses and individuals, as well as other business tax breaks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Currently, income taxes are scheduled to rise with the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts at the end of this year.

Unfortunately, as this bill is crafted and decisions are made about what to include, creating and saving jobs is going to take a back seat to building a package that can actually pass. Infrastructure investments will be a tough sell with Republicans, and Democrats won’t exactly be thrilled to vote for more business tax cuts. Done right, both have the potential to create jobs and stimulate the economy, but all the attention this election season on the federal deficit is likely going to distract legislators from focusing on these more pressing issues.

I’m guessing this new Obama jobs packaged gets bundled together with the Bush tax cuts bill. There is a baseline agreement right now on extending the tax cuts for all people earning less than $250,000. If the Republicans can get an extension of some of the tax cuts for higher earners, they may agree to some more temporary stimulus in the form of infrastructure spending. Obviously, there’s nothing ideal about such a package. Nobody will be thrilled, and it wouldn’t do as much to boost the economy right now as one that took the revenue losses from an upper-income tax break extension and invested in people who are most likely to spend. But, after watching the Senate basically stall out for the past few months, we seem to be facing a choice between nothing and something like this. Time for filibuster reform, anyone?

The following guest post is from David Bollier, independent policy strategist, journalist, and author of Viral Spiral. It was originally posted at the On the Commons blog.

Science has always recognized the power of sharing in developing new knowledge. But in the search for treatments and cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, the sprawling bodies of highly diverse research data are not easily shared. Either they are considered proprietary resources for making money, or they are hidden in academic databases that others may not know about, often inaccessible because of incompatible software formats. No single researcher really has the resources or incentive to develop an overarching regime to enable cooperation and sharing. And so dozens of academics, nonprofits and pharmaceutical companies have continued their research in relative isolation.

“Companies were caught in a prisoner’s dilemma,” a research at the University of Pennsylvania recently told the New York Times. “They all wanted to move the field forward, but no one wanted to take the risks of doing it.”

But ten years ago, Dr. Neil S. Buckholtz, who oversees dementia research at the National Institutes of Health, realized that the sharing of research data was a collective action problem that might be solved through concerted leadership. He helped instigate a plan by which the NIH stepped up to serve as an “honest broker” between the pharmaceutical industry and academics. The goal was to ensure that all research would be shared openly and freely, and published on the Internet immediately, so that anyone could use it. You could publish a research paper and you could develop new treatments, but no one would own the data. Researchers would even be free to make mistakes or misguided interpretations — because who is to say at the outset that something is necessarily incorrect?

Seven years ago, the NIH persuaded scientists from the FDA, the drug industries, medical-imaging companies, academia and nonprofit groups to cooperate in an ambitious scheme to affirmatively share their findings with each other. As the Times reports (August 13, 2010), the sharing of data is now starting to show results. Scientists studying Alzheimer’s disease routinely share their findings about “biological markers” that indicate the progression of the disease. This has led to recent scientific papers suggesting the value of PET scans and tests of spinal fluids as ways to make early diagnoses of Alzheimer’s.

The conventional business response to such radical ideas of “sharing” is that no company would have adequate incentive to invest in risky research unless they could be assured exclusive ownership of the results, in order to create a revenue-generating “product” (i.e., medical treatment or drug). But the drug industry has had to concede that diseases such as Alzheimer’s are just too scientifically complicated for any single research entity to tackle; the most fruitful way forward is to pursue an “open source” approach that places the basic building-blocks of knowledge into the commons – while sanctioning the private patenting of more refined medical innovations that build on the fruits of the commons.

It’s so common-sensical that it seems faintly ridiculous that a story of this sort should merit lead-story treatment in the New York Times.

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Related posts:

1. The Medical Innovation Convention: A New Global Framework for Healthcare Research and Development
2. Articles in CTWatch Quarterly
3. On Getting Raw Data for Cancer Research

With nine weeks to go before the 2010 Midterm Elections, it is worth checking in with Iowa Electronic Markets to see where things stand. “The IEM 2010 Congressional Election Markets are real-money futures markets where contract payoffs will be determined by the votes cast in the 2010 U.S. Congressional Elections. “Congress10” (plotted above) is based on the composition of both houses of Congress.”

Take a look at the plot above. You will notice there has been significant movement in the past few weeks. Consistent with the beliefs of a number of pundits, the dominant scenario for 2010 is split control “RH_DS10″ (i.e Republican House and Democrat Senate). Whether you view this outcome as good or bad, it is important to emphasize there is still time left and these trends could reverse.

Related posts:

1. Iowa Electronic Markets: Who Will Win Control of the House in the 2010 Midterms?
2. A Brief History of Senate Reconciliation Votes [From Sunlight Foundation]
3. Roundup of Coverage: Alvin Greene and the South Carolina Senate Primary

A barrage of independent expenditures from a group operated by a deep-pocketed New Orleans trial lawyer couldn’t deflate the candidacy of state Rep. Cedric Richmond, who, on Saturday, won the Democratic Party nomination to vie for the congressional seat occupied by Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.).

Louisiana Truth PAC invested $92,840 in attacks against Richmond, pictured right, in the days immediately before Saturday’s primary election, according to a Center for Responsive Politics review of filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The group argued Richmond is another William Jefferson, the longtime New Orleans congressman who infamously stored $90,000 in cash in his freezer and was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison last year after prosecutors won his conviction on bribery charges.

Louisiana Truth PAC specifically pointed to accusations, aired by New Orleans blogger American Zombie, that Richmond established at least one 501(c)3 nonprofit group and “bilked the organization’s cash flow for personal use,” including buying a diamond bezel for his “blingiddy-bling, white gold, Rolex watch.”

The Louisiana Truth PAC’s independent expenditures purchased polling, robo-calls, postcard mailings, TV advertising and the creation of a new anti-Richmond website, according to FEC filings. Nevertheless, Richmond, a three-term state legislator backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Congressional Black Caucus and the state’s Democratic Party establishment, won 60 percent of Saturday’s vote.

Louisiana Truth PAC’s treasurer is attorney Stuart H. Smith, who specializes in environmental law, class-action lawsuits and mass torts, as OpenSecrets Blog reported last week.

It's unknown whether Smith, who has personally contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and committees since January 2009 alone, is responsible for any or all of the money behind these advertisements -- although several expenditures reported to the FEC reference “in-kind payments via credit card by Stuart Smith.”

Ahead of Saturday’s primary election, Smith declined to elaborate to OpenSecrets Blog on who was funding the new political committee, beyond saying “concerned citizens.” Campaign finance reports detailing the sources of the funds raised by Louisiana Truth PAC, which is legally allowed to collect unlimited sums from individuals and corporations, will be filed with the FEC later this autumn.

Smith could not be reached for comment for this story.

Earlier this year, Smith himself donated the legal maximum to state Rep. Juan LaFonta, who finished a distant second behind Richmond, with just 21 percent of the vote.

Richmond had out-raised LaFonta, $507,300 to $301,800, as of Aug. 8, the most recently available data. As of Aug. 8, Richmond also boasted more than 10 times as much money in the bank: $166,300, compared to LaFonta’s $13,500.

In November, Richmond will face Cao, who in 2008 unexpectedly unseated Jefferson for this seat representing Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District.

The Richmond campaign did not immediately return messages left seeking a comment for this story.

Louisiana Truth PAC is one of several groups to recently materialize after legal decisions that opened the door for groups to tap corporate and individual donors for unlimited amounts to fund independent expenditures that expressly advocate for or against federal candidates. Those rulings include the Supreme Court's January decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and a federal court's March opinion in SpeechNow.org v. FEC.

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

News Roundup:

• The Washington Post listed the top spenders among independent groups and political parties on the midterm elections. (The Washington Post)
• Watchdog groups have not reached a consensus on whether the House Ethics Committee should investigate Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) for steering scholarship money to her friends and family. (The Hill)
• The Office of Congressional Ethics has closed its inquiry into Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) regarding fundraisers and his vote on the financial regulation bill. (Roll Call)($)
• The Office of Government Ethics plans to revamp its USOGE.gov website to make its audits and other reports easier to access. (nextgov)
• The Transportation Department plans to change how it compiles traffic accident data next month. (nextgov)
• A report from the Brookings Institution finds that apart from a few standouts, many congressional websites are “suboptimal.” (Federal Computer Week)

Relevant committee hearings scheduled for 8/31:

• None

Relevant bills introduced:

• None

Transparency events scheduled for 8/31:

• None

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

• Kevin Webb discussed using models to draw conclusions from data. (Sunlight Labs)
• Google Summer of Code student Gabriel Joel Pérez shared his experience working on the Sunlight Foundation’s Open State Project. (Sunlight Labs)
• 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)