LegiStorm launches earmarks database

Posted by LegiStorm on Wednesday, November 19, 2008

We are proud to launch the latest free LegiStorm resource, a free searchable database to track the explosive growth of legislative earmarks.

The earmarks database builds on other LegiStorm data so users can find important connections between otherwise unconnected facts, such as between earmarks and the corporate-sponsored travel or personal financial holdings of members of Congress and their staff.

"Earmarks have been at the center of several congressional scandals in the past few years, and openness in the process can help combat potential abuses of the earmark system," said Jock Friedly, a former Capitol Hill investigative reporter who is the founder and president of LegiStorm. "LegiStorm is proud to integrate earmarks data with our other data sets in order to bring deeper insight and increased transparency to congressional and executive spending."

LegiStorm's new data were provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that tracks earmarks in detail.

For more information, read our press release.

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3 comments so far

Posted by anonymous on 11/19/2008 01:20 PM EST
Mr. Friedly must have an amazingly hard-working and competent staff to do the amount of work it takes to prepare a database like this. Awesome work, folks! You deserve to be highly compensated.
Posted by anonymous on 11/19/2008 10:53 AM EST
The history of disclosure in the U.S. suggest otherwise. Once Congress agrees to make something public, it's nearly impossible to go back on that because of the hue and cry that would be generated if they were to remove access to it again. Instead, Congress and the lobbying industry is likely to try to find more clever ways to hide such things.
Posted by Ozymandias on 11/19/2008 10:15 AM EST
This will become an instantaneously vital resource - until Congress realizes it's potential and kills it.

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