UA News

A partnership leads to the development of an online tool where citizens can view legislative committee rosters alongside campaign donor data.

Sunshine Week, a week dedicated to focusing a national spotlight on government transparency and the availability of public records at the federal and state levels, got a boost with an online tool that provides easy access to state legislative committee rosters and campaign donor data.

­Project Vote Smart and FollowTheMoney.org, two nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations, teamed up to produce the Legislative Committee Analysis Tool, which allows citizens to easily view state legislative committee rosters alongside campaign donor data.

The online database draws from the FollowTheMoney.org database of campaign donor information and Project Vote Smart's database of candidates and elected officials, providing citizens a greater level of transparency in state government.

Project Vote Smart, a national nonpartisan research organization, tracks the job performances of more than 40,000 candidates and incumbents at the presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and state legislative levels, and provides the information at www.votesmart.org and over the toll free Voter's Research Hotline (1-888-VOTE-SMART), which also serves as a help line.

"Much of the data is gathered by volunteers and student interns," said Adelaide Kimball, senior adviser at Project Vote Smart. "The new online tool was designed for the average citizen and the national data it tracks is gathered right here in Arizona."

Project Vote Smart has a research office on the University of Arizona campus. Dozens of interns staff the office and assist with collecting data for several Project Vote Smart research initiatives.

Sunshine Week 2009, which began Sunday and ends Saturday, and provides an opportunity to show "how Project Vote Smart data is being used and the many ways the data we have always had can be sliced and diced to provide voters with important legislator data," Kimball said.

"The new Web tool makes for an easy, impartial way to look at the data. For instance, with the tool you can see what committee legislators work on and where the money they are receiving as campaign contributions are coming (from) listed by industry and/or individual. Ultimately people will be able to follow the money and see how the legislator voted – and decide whether there is a perception of influence," Kimball said.

The Web tool enables a close look at often overlooked legislative committee proceedings, where bills referred to a committee may be altered or outright killed.

"The final vote is often the public face put to fierce infighting and maneuvering that occurred in legislative committees," said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics. "The committee room is where the action is, and where political donors and lobbyists do most of their work to influence legislation."

The nonprofit, nonpartisan FollowTheMoney.org collects and analyzes campaign contribution information for state-level candidates, political party committees, and ballot committees in each of the 50 states.

This new resource gives users the freedom to view information in several ways. First, users can see which campaign contributions from a particular economic sector went to a specific member of a committee. In addition, users can see which industries and organizations donated the most money to all members of that committee. 

Relationships and conflicts between special interests and the public interest can further be examined by easy access to other data at Project Vote Smart's Web site.

The Project Vote Smart site contains information on federal and state office holders, including their voting records, issue positions, grades by special interest groups, speeches, backgrounds and contact information. 

"People have asked what we do once an election is over, but our work gets more intense after elections as we begin updating our site with new biographical information, new phone numbers or office addresses. We must also update any changes in committees legislators sit on or head. In addition, we keep track of their job performance on a daily basis so the work never ends," Kimball said.