Insanely Useful Tools You Can Use to Keep Track of Congress and State Lawmakers
We will demonstrate new Web tools that help citizens keep track of politics in Washington and in their own states. These Web tools provide a new way to look at lobbying influence, campaign contributions, legislative data, government documents and how all these points of interest intersect. Bloggers and citizens alike can learn how to use these tools from the creators themselves and gain new skills to help them do their own investigative research and reporting.
Paul Blumenthal is a researcher, blogger and congressional expert for the Sunlight Foundation. He has worked on projects including Insanely Useful Sites, Fortune 535, The Open House Project, PoliQuiz, Punch Clock Map, and researching lawmaker web sites. He previously worked for Rock the Vote and interned at Campaign for America's Future.
Edwin Bender has been involved with breaking down barriers to state-level political donor data for more than 15 years, first as research director of the Money in Western Politics Project, and later as research director for the Institute. He has investigated the relationship between campaign finances and election and public policy outcomes extensively. Prior to embarking on this work, Bender was a newspaper reporter and editor for newspapers in Montana, Alaska and Washington state, culminating a decade-long career at the Tacoma News Tribune.
As executive director, Sheila serves as CRP’s chief administrator, liaison to its board and major funders and primary spokesperson. Sheila became director in December 2006, after eight years as CRP’s Research Director, supervising data analysis for CRP’s website, OpenSecrets.org, and research for media, academics, activists and the public. She first joined the CRP staff in 1989 and was assistant editor of the very first edition of Open Secrets, the Center’s flagship publication. The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money and its influence on politics and policy.
Donny Shaw handles editorial content at OpenCongress.org, a non-partisan, not-for-profit website that brings together official government data on Congress with news and blog coverage, social networking, and public participation tools to create a fuller picture of what's really going on. He is also a co-founder of the financial reform group A New Way Forward and a farmer in beautiful Western Massachusetts.
