Raising the Curtain on NY Government
Open government takes a step forward with the launch of Project Sunlight, a website dedicated to tracking and making public the details of government decision making in the Empire State. Public “cynicism about state government” was the impetus behind the project, led by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
The site currently aggregates and standardizes information from various state agencies. Users can track bills, lobbying activity, and government contracts, as well as the legislation sponsored by individual elected officials and the campaign contributions they receive. Anyone can search by bill, elected official, lobbyist, or peruse a map tracking allocations of tax dollars among each county in the state.
Despite the easily-confused names, the project is unaffiliated with the Sunlight Foundation, the non-profit devoted to promoting open and accountable government through information technology, which gives the NY project high marks.
Americans for Tax Reform collects information on other state and federal initiatives to improve accountability and fiscal transparency (via Gavin Baker).
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