| (Virtually) Crashing the Convention Parties |
By Connor Kenny The Sunlight Foundation has built the ultimate tool for tracking the lavish parties lobbyists and big companies put on for our politicians. As the Democratic and Republican conventions start this week, we thought those of you who aren't in Denver or Minneapolis would like a window into kind of influence pushing is happening there. (And for those of you who are there, I suppose it'd be a handy party-crashing guide.)
More than 400 convention parties being thrown by the likes of Citi, Eli Lilly, AT&T and powerhouse lobbying firms such as Patton Boggs can be found at Sunlight's new site, http://PoliticalPartyTime.org
Political Party Time is the results of months of work gathering faxed-in invitations from our tipsters – otherwise this information would have been near-impossible to completely uncover.
However, you can strike a blow right now for more transparency in Congress. Sunlight has put together a site making it easy to call your senators and demand that they pass S.223, which would bring the Senate into the modern age by making their campaign donor records electronic and searchable online. As it stands, the records have to be manually scanned and re-entered, delaying their release for weeks. Take a look at http://pass223.com
best,
Conor Kenny
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