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Real Time Investigations

  1. This Week’s Fundraisers: Jammin Out to Jay-Z and Kanye West, Georgia on Republican Minds and more By La Toya Gratten Oct 31, 2011 3:12 p.m.

    “Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made” – Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y. and Rep. André Carson, D-Ind., will be hosting fundraising events at the Jay-Z and Kanye West Concert on Nov. 3 at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. Admission to the event and reception will cost $2,500 for two tickets and $1500...  

  2. Senate Dems look for cash, advice from tech leaders Friday By Keenan Steiner Oct 25, 2011 3:33 p.m.

    The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm is mixing politics with technology this week, putting on a fundraising conference featuring top executives from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other Silicon Valley companies on Thursday. Many of these executives have already contributed handsomely to the...  

  3. This Week’s Fundraisers: Money Trees in the Florida Keys, Duck Duck Goose, Les Miserables, and more By La Toya Gratten Oct 24, 2011 12:45 p.m.

    Duck… Duck… Goose! – The Valley PAC, the leadership fund for Rep. Collin Peterson, D—Minn., will be hosting a Goose Hunt this weekend in Eagle Lake, Texas. This is not the first time the Valley PAC has hosted a poultry themed weekend.  Early this year, they had a Turkey Hunt at the Blue Head...  

  4. Gaddafi's long history of lobbying comes to an end By Lindsay Young Oct 20, 2011 1:31 p.m.

    Libyan Dictator Moammar Gaddafi was killed today in his hometown of Sirte, a showman to the end, “brandishing a golden pistol.” Lobbying, in many ways, was part of his political arsenal that boosted Gaddafi’s international prowess, helped protect him from additional sanctions and promoted the business interests of the Libyan ...

  5. GAO says Federal Reserve should improve transparency By Nancy Watzman Oct 19, 2011 11:57 a.m.

    In the wake of the financial crisis, when members of Congress and others raised questions about conflicts of interest within the Federal Reserve banking system and individual banks, the Federal Reserve should take concrete steps to become more transparent, reports the General Accountability Office (GAO) in a report issued ...

  6. @Ed @SunFoundation The Mother Jones piece came up first on google. Is it inaccurate? Here's Nat Journal on same: http://t.co/vNfPFUxj

    bill_allison Oct 18, 2011 9:06 p.m.
  7. Politicians use Jay-Z, Kanye West concerts to fundraise By La Toya Gratten Oct 18, 2011 11:16 a.m.

    What do you get when you mix a politician and two of the hottest acts in the music industry? You will get one of the hottest concert tickets in town.  Looking to end the year on a fundraising high note, Rep. Ed Towns, D., N.Y., is offering a VIP reception and two tickets to the [...]  

  8. This weeks’s fundraisers: Tax specialists fete Hatch, Brown seeks pot of gold, Realtors PAC stays active By Keenan Steiner Oct 17, 2011 4:08 p.m.

    Deficit panel-watching lobbyists throwing fundraiser for Orrin Hatch. Four lobbyists at Capitol Tax Partners, all with previous posts on the Senate Finance Committee, are hosting Hatch, R-Utah, the ranking Republican on the committee, for breakfast on Thursday. One of them, Lawrence Willcox, also...  

  9. GOP Lobbyist’s clients curry favor with Deficit Panel’s Camp By Keenan Steiner Oct 12, 2011 12:59 p.m.

    Once the members of the powerful deficit-cutting committee were announced in early August, one of the first reported events where lobbyists could try to influence the panel was a fundraiser for Rep. Dave Camp’s, R-Mich., leadership PAC on Sept. 7. Federal records offer a glimpse into who tried....  

  10. Upton, Becerra, keep super committee fundraising rolling By Keenan Steiner Oct 5, 2011 4:24 p.m.

    Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said he wouldn’t schedule new campaign fundraisers while serving on the special deficit-cutting panel, but that doesn’t mean he’s not fundraising in Washington. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., made the same pledge, yet neither has addressed events that were already on...  

  11. @charlesornstein @AHCJ_Pia We corrected, and clarified HRSA, not reporters, forbidden to release doc names. http://t.co/jU8omTES

    bill_allison Sep 30, 2011 6:20 p.m.
there's more

Nonprofit groups target super committee with billboard ads, don't disclose donors

By Stevie Mathieu Nov 1, 2011 2:13 p.m.

With so many vying for the attention of the 12 lawmakers charged with cutting upto $1.5 trillion from the nation's deficit, some groups have turned to plastering their messages to the "super committee" on billboards. 

In New York City's Times Square and in Washington, D.C., the billboards tell the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that “Congress should cut spending like a Thanksgiving turkey” and “Before we cut turkeys, Congress must cut $1.5 trillion in spending,” referring to the deadline set for the supercommittee. The ads are part of a campaign called Bankrupting America. The campaign was organized by Public Notice, an organization that fails to disclose its donors.

Public Notice is registered as a 501(c)4 organization with the Internal Revenue Service and are mostly advocacy groups. It can receive corporate donations without letting listing their donors to the public. According to its website, Public Notice's goal is to “advance open markets and economic growth by educating Americans on key economic and fiscal issues.” It describes itself as independent and nonpartisan.

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Sunlight Live Team to Cover "Super Committee" Discussion of Simpson-Bowles and Previous Debt Proposals

By Katy Schultz Oct 31, 2011 midnight

The so-called super committee will meet in public tomorrow for only the fourth time, when it looks at recent efforts to reduce the debt in a session titled “Overview of Previous Debt Proposals."

And the Sunlight Live team will bring you the events as it unravels in the hearing room and provide context to the discussion.

Key witnesses include Alan Simpson, former Republican Senator from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, a businessman and former White House Chief of Staff during the Clinton Administration. They served as co-chairs on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. President Obama appointed the two men to the Presidential Commission in 2010 with the intention of “…identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.”

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Federal Reserve delays release of transcripts of major meetings

By Nancy Watzman Oct 28, 2011 10:58 a.m.

If you want to know who says what at next week's meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which oversees market operations for the central bank, you will have to wait until the year 2016 to find out.

While the FOMC releases the minutes of these meetings three weeks after the fact, full transcripts are kept secret for five years. Right now the most recent transcript available is for December 13, 2005. And even these transcripts have been edited from the original.

As a result, the public still does not know the details of what Federal Reserve officials were talking about as the recent financial crisis began to build and then exploded.

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Wednesday: Sunlight Live to check in on super committee

By Tessa Muggeridge Oct 24, 2011 12:47 p.m.

When the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or super committee, emerges from the shadows on Wednesday morning to hold its first public hearing in a month, the Sunlight Live team will be there to shine a light on who’s influencing the panel.

As the 12 members inch closer to proposing at least $1.2 trillion in federal cuts or new revenue sources before the end of November, little has come out about their ideas even as reports have surfaced about daily or twice-daily “unofficial” meetings.

More than 200 groups or people — with health care lobbyists leading the way — have reported lobbying the committee so far as members consider cuts that could affect virtually every industry across the nation.

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