Politics

24 Days Of Local Sunlight ? Day 12, 13, 14 and 15

By Nisha Thompson

We have reached the middle of the month, which means there  isn?t many days left in my 24 Days of Local Sunlight!  So let me get a thankin!

My thanks goes out to Annapolis Politics, Fighting 29th, South Texas Chisme and Triad Watch.

Annapolis Politics written by Brian Gill covers about Annapolis and surrounding areas.  Whether it’s live blogging city council meetings or offering budget solutions Annapolis Politics is a great place to find information about the local government. I really liked his work highlighting shady elected official business and one of my favorites posts explaining campaign finance information.

Fighting 29th is a blog that focuses on the activities of its representative Eric Massa.  Written by Rottenchester who also maintains Congressdb, which you can use to compare congressional votes.  One of my favorite posts is the one that Rep. Massa voting against Time Warner even though they are one of his major donors.   Another great series of posts was about the previous occupier of district 29th’s seat, former Rep. Kuhl and they were highlighting how difficult it was to find out how much congressional travel to other countries costs.  This blog is a great example of how to really follow your member of Congress.

South Texas Chisme is “a collection south Texas political gossip”.  I like reading it because you can find a wide variety of different information not the least of which transparency related.  I have highlighted posts about personal financial disclosures and campaign finance reports.  It is very neat to be able to stop at one blog and see what is going on in a whole region.  I hope people see my local sunlight’s that way too.  A snapshot of transparency in the local level.

Triad Watch is keeping an eye out on North Carolina, by doing research and keeping an eye out on what is going on on the local level.  Like this post about  local developers giving free rides to local elected officials to Washington, DC or posting the City of Greensboro’s disbursements online to see what government money is working locally.

Full post as published by Sunlight Foundation on December 15, 2009 (boomark / email).