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Earmark Watch - Bringing Citizen Oversight to Congressional Spending
“Here's your chance to investigate earmarks–those spending measures inserted by members of Congress into bills that direct taxpayer dollars to their pet projects. Are members using earmarks to meet pressing needs? Reward political supporters? Are they good public policy, or vehicles for pure pork? Every earmark is different, and we currently have over 3,000 of them online, ready and waiting for you to dig into.”
http://earmarkwatch.org
Fedspending.org - "Combines data from the Federal Procurement Data System and the Federal Assistance Award Data System to create a free, searchable database of federal government contracting and spending. The database allows users to search contracts and grants by state, congressional district, contracting agency or type of award, and shows where the money is being spent and whether it was competitively bid."
http://www.fedspending.org
Follow the Money - This is a resource for money spent in state politics.
http://www.followthemoney.org
GovTrack.us - "Helps you keep tabs on the U.S. Congress. This site is non-commercial, non-partisan and is a community and open source project. It allows people to track certain people and bills through emails and rss."
http://www.govtrack.us
Government Documents – couldn’t connect
http://governmentdocs.org
“Legistorm provides two unique sets of congressional information. Their congressional staffer salary information can be searched or browsed, giving a revealing view into the working of member, committee, leadership, and administrative offices. Legistorm also presents congressional travel data, offering a robust search feature and rankings among members, staff, sponsors, and destination.” - Sunlight Foundation
http://www.legistorm.com
Louis Database
http://www.louisdb.org
“MAPLight.org provides a detailed analysis of legislation by tracking bills, the support and opposition bills garner from interest groups and the campaign contributions given by those interest groups to members of Congress and for the state of
California
. The site lets users tracks the day by day, vote by vote, impact of political contributions at the federal level.” – Quote from Sunlight
http://www.maplight.org
“Metavid opens up video source footage of House and Senate proceedings for permanent reusable online access, allowing citizens to remix, investigate, and track their representatives in a participant-driven open source archive.” – Quote from Sunlight
http://metavid.ucsc.edu
OpenCongress.org – “Is an open-source, non-partisan, legislative Web resource that uses structured data scraped from THOMAS by GovTrack.us to show legislative information – bills, committees, member profiles – in a more useable format. OpenCongress.org offers RSS feeds as an easy and convenient way to follow the latest news and blog mentions relating to a bill, a vote or a member of Congress. The site serves as a rich resource for political bloggers, issue-based membership groups, and individuals.”
http://www.opencongress.org
OpenCRS - “American taxpayers spend over $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a "think tank" that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. Yet, these reports are not made available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports.”
http://www.opencrs.com
Open Hearings – “Is a mini-site of schedules of current and future Senate committee hearings which includes links to live audio and video of hearings in progress. Users can subscribe to receive updates for all committees and hearings via RSS feed or iCalendar.”
http://openhearings.org/live
Open Secrets is a “Research group tracking money in
U.S.
politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, the organization aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government.”
http://www.opensecrets.org
Open Secrets Lobbying Database
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists
Open Secrets Revolving Door
http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/index.php
Open Secrets Financial Disclosure
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/overview.php
”For more than 40 years, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been one of the world's largest and most reliable sources of comparable statistics, economic and social data. The Organisation provides a setting where governments compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies.”
http://www.oecd.org
Public Citizen “Fights for openness and democratic accountability in government, for the right of consumers to seek redress in the courts; for clean, safe and sustainable energy sources; for social and economic justice in trade policies; for strong health, safety and environmental protections; and for safe, effective and affordable prescription drugs and health care.”
http://www.citizen.org/index.cfm
“Project Vote Smart provides detailed information – biographical information, campaign finances, interest groups ratings, issue positions, and public statements – on elected officials including the President, members of Congress, state officials and leadership in state legislatures.”
http://www.votesmart.org
“Taxpayers for Common Sense is an independent and non-partisan voice for taxpayers working to increase transparency and expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare.”
http://www.taxpayer.net
“The Real News Network is a television news and documentary network focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism… We are viewer supported and do not accept advertising, government or corporate funding.”
http://www.therealnews.com
“Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a giant collection of databases of information from various agencies of the federal government.” – Sunlight Foundation
http://www.trac.syr.edu
“WashingtonWatch.com delivers the numbers behind proposed legislation and regulation. It is important to understand where these numbers come from and what they mean.” – Sunlight Foundation
http://www.washingtonwatch.com
“Watchdog.net is a hub for data about politics. The site brings together census data, voting records, lobbying forms, campaign finance reports, and much more in one easy-to-understand place.” – Sunlight Foundation
http://watchdog.net
“Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world; anyone can edit it.”
http://www.wikipedia.org
”The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) was established in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. In order for citizens to effectively exercise their voices in a democracy, they should be informed about the problems and choices that they face.”
www.cepr.net
"The Center for Defense Information (CDI) provides expert analysis on various components of
U.S.
national security, international security and defense policy. CDI promotes wide-ranging discussion and debate on security issues such as nuclear weapons, space security, missile defense, small arms and military transformation.”
www.cdi.org
Project on Government Oversight (POGO) - Federal Contractor Misconduct Database
“POGO is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption and other musconduct in order to achieve a more accountable federal government.”
http://www.pogo.org
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