Can i just say Thank You. As a software developer and US citizen, I am immensely grateful for the work that 18F and the USDS are doing for this country's digital infrastructure.
Are you going to make this/all open source? The work you are doing is so cool,that it probably can be used in other countries like India (which is already signing up for FOSS ijne-governance in a big way)
Nice work by you and your team so far Leah! Quick question - what's the rationale behind having the two "Page TBD" top links in the nav? Is that to make sure the CSS/design works using placeholders or do you keep them knowing there are groups within the FEC that will definitely need 2 spots on the nav bar?
Thanks! It's a much simpler reason than that, I'm afraid. It's a reference to the fact that this isn't a comprehensive beta of the FEC site, but a beta of a few parts of the upcoming new FEC site. We're moving more beta functionality and content over in the future.
Seriously, there are lots of countries where human beings are treated fairly and humanely and with dignity. The US is not one of them, as we've seen in everything from the pre-trial treatment of Manning by the Feds to the way the local police treat minorities.
Uhh... a new website, great. I know it takes the federal agencies a lot of time to do literally anything, so let's stop for a moment and bask in this site.
To more important matters: what about stopping the flow of corporate and foreign money into our elections? What about shutting down Super PACs or making their info transparent? What about enshrining publicly funded elections?
Given all those recent studies/reports that claim the USA is an oligarchy and average citizens have no real impact on the direction of policy, why should we care about a shiny new website? We vote, but the votes don't matter anyway.
The ability to explore and analyze campaign finance data on a website that actually works (I don't know if anyone else has ever tried to use the old FEC site...) is a huge step in being able to name and shame abuses of money in politics. This isn't just "a new website," it's a platform for effecting change.
Does it matter? If the website lets you identify and pick right targets for maximum effect, then it helps regardless of the "mechanism for effecting change" you seek to employ.
"Yet despite disclosure rules, it is possible to spend money without voters knowing the identities of donors before the election.[36] In federal elections, for example, political action committees have the option to choose to file reports on a "monthly" or "quarterly" basis.[37][38][39] This allows funds raised by PACs in the final days of the election to be spent and votes cast before the report is due."
It matters. Transparency that is deferred until after the decision point of an election means that the potential for change is torpedoed for at least a few years each time. I very much agree that we are better off with any information we can get, but trying to eke democracy out of election forensics is going to be extremely tough.
Fair, but I think this is just a project of the new 18f initiative. It is a good thing to make our government data more accessible and useful to all of us, it makes it harder to lie about things, or make it even more egregious when they take additional steps to hide malfeasance.
It doesn't change that we are re-painting the house when the roof is collapsing.
"Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards." [0]
How do we ask people to care about this problem without being able to do any research about it?
No, it's just whining that the FEC isn't doing what cryoshon wants. In reality the FEC can't do much because it's stuck in partisan deadlock and things like the Citizens Vs. United ruling allow them to do even less.
This website has nothing to do with the infighting between political parties, it's about giving citizens the actual data. Change will come not from the FEC magically agreeing on anything, but from people finding out where the money is going and voting for people who vow to change it. This is literally the best the FEC can do!
...there's always more they can do, and frankly making a new website which will post forensic election data after the time when it is relevant doesn't count as an action on the political chessboard of the health of the country-- on the separate, smaller stakes chessboard of getting agency funding and squabbling over the budgeting of that funding, sure, this helps the FEC say they did something, which is worthwhile to them and maybe us as well. I think that we'd be better off discussing problem A than problem B, though.
As far as what the FEC can do which might have an actual impact: the heads of the federal agencies can access the bully pulpit if they choose to, but typically their leaders are selected for pliability rather than assertiveness. I believe relatively recently the head of the SEC came out and told the media that they don't have enough resources to enforce their regulations in any capacity, which made quite a stir at the time and likely lead to funding for their more recent attempts to build high profile cases.
Agreed. However cryoshon's point is that just giving us all the data isn't going to change anything even if we have the information. i.e. our votes are irrelevant.
So even though we have a nice new site, it's a waste since the outcome is the same.
Yeah, it's kind of depressing that people aren't engaging with the real issue. I guess there's a strong desire to forget/deny big problems in favor of focusing on smaller irrelevant ones.
Sometimes change takes a lot longer than we're comfortable with. Slavery lasted for centuries. Think about what it must have been like in the middle of that time span.
I think people give up too easily when they come to believe the problem might last longer than their lifetime.
