Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Sunlight Foundation, a transparency trailblazer, closes after 15 years

Congress at sunset
Bill Clark/Getty Images

The sun has set on one of the earliest and most influential Washington good-government groups: the Sunlight Foundation, which pushed transparency in all levels of government and politics as an essential cure for democracy's problems.

Sunlight's "role is no longer essential to its original central mission," Board Chairman Michael Klein said in announcing the group's shuttering last week. "Virtually all of the activities and staff of Sunlight have been transferred to other engaged institutions, or closed."


Founded 15 years ago, the nonprofit sought to leverage once-innovative technologies to push government transparency and encourage rigorous oversight. It was named to reflect the famed aphorism coined a century ago by Justice Louis Brandeis: "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants."

The organization helped create more than four dozen public records databases and other tools to shed light on political, policymaking and lobbying activity. Some of the more prominent projects are now under different management — including up-to-date and sortable reports of foreign spending to lobby Washington (now at the Center for Responsive Politics) and detailed records of how Congress spends money on itself (now at ProPublica).

The group's demise had been on the horizon for years, though. While it was once a digital trailblazer, the internet's fast and robust growth led many other organizations to follow Sunlight's model. With more players on the scene, such tools as the OpenCongress legislative tracking database became obsolete.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The series of federal court decisions in the past decade relaxing campaign finance disclosure requirements and allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts in congressional and presidential elections also hindered its ability to advocate for more regulation of money in politics.

Four years ago, the group came close to a shutdown or merger after an unsuccessful search for a new executive director. But after a few months the board had found a new top staffer and assigned him to make deep cuts but keep the operation going.

Still, Sunlight struggled financially. Although donations, mainly from democracy reform philanthropies, surged to $2.2 million two years ago, after plummeting below $500,000 for a couple of years, that was still less than half what they had been as recently as 2015.

Read More

America and the Magic Order of US

Lady Liberty

Provided by Sarah Beckerman

America and the Magic Order of US

Part I - The Ministry Denies It

Like many true elder millennials, I find comfort in escaping into fantasy worlds – Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. But lately, these stories haven’t just been a break from the chaos of real life. They’ve become a lens for understanding it. They remind me what courage looks like when the odds are stacked, and what it means to stand up, not just to threats to justice, but to silence, complicity, and fear.

Lately, I’ve been thinking less about the final battles, the catharsis, the clarity, the triumphant arrival of friends. We’re not there yet. Not even close. What I keep returning to is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the part of the story where everything tightens. The danger is real. The protagonists are scattered. The institutions are eroding. And the air gets heavy with denial and dread.

Keep ReadingShow less
Nevada House Speaker Says It's Time to Give the State's Largest Voting Bloc Access to Primaries

Las Vegas, Nevada sign

Photo by Grant Cai on Unsplash.

Nevada House Speaker Says It's Time to Give the State's Largest Voting Bloc Access to Primaries

LAS VEGAS, NEV. - Nevada’s largest registered voting bloc – unaffiliated voters – could soon gain access to the state’s taxpayer-funded primaries, if a new bill from Democratic Nevada House Speaker Steve Yeager becomes law.

The bill, AB597, was introduced Monday with one week left in the session. It gives registered unaffiliated voters the option to submit an online request for a party's primary ballot no later than 14 days ahead of a primary or during in-person voting.

Keep ReadingShow less
Eliminating HIV Prevention Is a Public Health Crisis

A vaccine bottle and syringe for an injection preventing HIV.

Getty Images, Kitsawet Saethao

Eliminating HIV Prevention Is a Public Health Crisis

The Trump administration is planning to eliminate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of HIV Prevention. The collapse of HIV prevention will mean 143,000 additional people in the United States will acquire HIV in the next five years. We are on the cusp of a public health crisis.

The most recent attack on the reproductive health center in Palm Springs is a wake-up call to what could be to come if we continue to be bystanders in the erasure of reproductive and sexual health rights. A profound crack in an already fragile public health infrastructure continues to grow as government officials consider eliminating vital public health structures that monitor health trends, outbreaks, and our ability to prepare and respond to an ongoing HIV epidemic.

Keep ReadingShow less
Congress Bill Spotlight: Preventing Presidential Inaugurations on MLK Day, Like Trump’s

Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th President of the United States.

Getty Images, Pool

Congress Bill Spotlight: Preventing Presidential Inaugurations on MLK Day, Like Trump’s

The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about, but that often don't get the right news coverage.

President Donald Trump falsely claimed his January 6, 2021 speech preceding the Capitol Building riot “had more people” in attendance than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Keep ReadingShow less