Lunchtime Links
March 17, 2010 01:01 PM
1) The Washington Post has an excellent infographic on House health care votes, campaign contributions and percent uninsured in district. 2) The New York Review of Books’ Michael Tomasky has a run-down on the process that led to the health...
Where's CONAN? 6 months later, still no sign of legal treatise
March 17, 2010 12:46 PM
On the 220th birthday of the Constitution, Sunlight made a simple request: the fantastic legal treatise known as the Constitution Annotated should be published online in XML. The Constitution Annotated — CONAN, to those who know it well — explains...
Video: Press Conference Announcing the Public Online Information Act
March 17, 2010 12:01 PM
Representative Steve Israel, Sunlight Executive Director Ellen Miller, and Personal Democracy Forum co-founder Andrew Rasiej announce the introduction of the Public Online Information Act, or POIA, in the House of Representatives. More information is available at ThePOIA.org. Watch the video...
Not to be Missed
March 17, 2010 11:46 AM
Sen. Ted Kaufman [D, DE] gave a widely lauded floor speech last week calling for strong financial reform legislation and an end to “too big the fail.” Now that C-SPAN has put their entire archive online, I can post...
Kucinich Will Vote "Yes"
March 17, 2010 11:46 AM
When health care passed the House in November, Rep. Dennis Kucinich [D, OH-10] was one of the 39 Democrats who voted “no.” He was the only vote Democrats lost to the left; the only Democrat voting against it because...
Who Am I? What Am I Doing Here? (Everything I Learned Came From Romero Movies)
March 17, 2010 11:00 AM
In honor of Sunlight Week I’ve posted an explanation on what I do and why I do it below. A little personal transparency from the Sunlight Foundation: I’ve always loved zombie movies, although I’m almost exclusively particular to those made...
Of the 6 Recent Substantial Uses of the Self-Executing Rule, 5 Were Done by GOP
March 16, 2010 10:46 PM
Since the politics of the self-executing rule (a.k.a. the “deem and pass” strategy, or the “Slaughter solution”) are blowing up right now — discussion of the rule currently dominates the to half of Memerorandum — I thought I should...
House Wishes Iranians a Happy Nowruz
March 16, 2010 07:01 PM
Nowruz is the Iranian New Year, which is celebrated each year on the vernal equinox, otherwise known as the first day of Spring. For the first time ever, the House of Representatives has voted to wish “Iranian-Americans and the...
"Deem and Pass" Not Typically Used for Controversial Legislation
March 16, 2010 05:01 PM
As I reported earlier, the “deem and pass” strategy that House Democrats are considering using for passing the Senate health care bill, allowing them to pass it without actually taking a separate vote on it, isn’t unprecedented. It has...
Transparency Around the World
March 16, 2010 04:01 PM
It’s Sunshine Week again, and in that spirit I want to share a recent story about open government. Two weeks ago, the chief of staff for a member of the Republic of Korea Assembly looked over at me and, through...
For Health Care, A Debate Over Process Threatens Policy
March 16, 2010 03:16 PM
Ironically, the legislative maneuver chosen to protect on-the-fence House Democrats from the political fallout of voting for the Senate health care bill (H.R.3590) could actually derail the it. Conservative outrage over a plan to have the House pass the...
Introducing POIA
March 16, 2010 02:31 PM
Today Representatives Steve Israel introduced the Public Online Information Act calling for government to: Create an expert committee for all three branches of government to steer government towards making datasets publicly available in meaningful ways. Direct the executive branch to...
Of the 6 Recent uses of the Self-Executing Rule, 5 Were Done by GOP
March 16, 2010 02:01 PM
Since the politics of the self-executing rule (a.k.a. the “deem and pass” strategy, or the “Slaughter solution”) are blowing up right now — discussion of the rule currently dominates the to half of Memerorandum — I thought I should...
Senate Breaks Filibuster on HIRE Act
March 16, 2010 02:01 PM
For a second time, the Senate is expected to vote on an $18 billion jobs bill known as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment, or HIRE, Act (H.R.2847). The HIRE Act provides businesses that hire unemployed workers for a...
Making Public Information Available Online: Rep. Israel Introduces the Public Online Information Act
March 16, 2010 02:01 PM
Today, Representative Steve Israel introduced the Public Online Information Act, which if enacted would free a vast treasure trove of government information. All too often, information that the law requires be publicly available is hidden behind stone walls and paper...
Transparency Is Trending
March 16, 2010 12:31 PM
This week is Sunshine Week and a lot of people are very excited and are taking the time to write about why open government is important to them. Here are just a few of some of the great posts about...
C-SPAN Posts Full Archives
March 16, 2010 11:31 AM
Serious geek-out moment. C-SPAN has posted their full archives online in embeddable format. I could waste a few days watching this. Since this is crazy health care reform week, I’ve decided to post the following video I found in the...
Read the Bill Becoming the Norm
March 16, 2010 11:01 AM
Check out this line from Jay Newton-Small’s Swampland blog post on the way forward for health care reform in the House: Once they have a bill, Dems need to post it online for at least 72 hours for members to...
End of quarter dash for cash
March 16, 2010 06:45 AM
The end of the fundraising quarter is drawing near and with it a big increase in fundraising events. Already we have 538 events logged into our database for the month of March, in contrast to 365 for February and 112...
160,000 Hours of C-SPAN
March 16, 2010 03:19 AM
This is a dream come true!: Researchers, political satirists and partisan mudslingers, take note: C-Span has uploaded virtually every minute of its video archives to the Internet. The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five presidential...
