Wiki the Vote!

This came in. Congressopedia? Blog grants of up to five grand for blogging their local member of Congress? Has the whole world gone mad? To be serious, having a student blog their congressman or woman would be pretty interesting and might make for an unique entry on their resume--

"Wiki the Vote" Project on 2008 Congressional Elections Launched - Blogroll Featured

The Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Media and Democracy launched the "Wiki the Vote" project on Congresspedia. The goal: to build profiles on every candidate running for Congress in 2008 (primary and general elections) to complement the existing profiles on every member of Congress. Bloggers, citizens and even candidates are invited to post information on the candidates and their opponents.

The project is based in state-by-state election portals that include a blogroll of all the local blogs we could find that at least occasionally cover Congress. If you're getting this email, your blog should be in there. Here is the portal for Washington State:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Portal:Washington_State_and_the_U.S._Congress

We welcome you to come in and edit the listing (just click the "edit" in the red bar at the top of the box" to give a short (10 words or so - be frugal!) description of your blog. Something like "Local and national politics from a right-of-center view" would be good. Also, know any of the candidates for Congress in your area? Please let them know about this resource (this should be one of the top Google results for their name within a few weeks) and encourage them to add information. Or, if you know something, add it yourself! We are also open to suggestions and any questions you might have about this new project.

New Mini-Grants Available for Local Bloggers

The Sunlight Foundation/Network is offering grants of $1,000 to $5,000 for local bloggers that dedicate some of their blogging time to covering their member of Congress. Applications will be judged on how your blog tries to keep your readers informed about your member of Congress. The focus should be on shedding more light on what Congress does and how to improve the communication between citizens and Congress. As a rule we do not award money for salaries but do for technology upgrades. If you are interested in applying, please fill out the provided application, it is available on the Sunlight Foundation grants page (http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/grants). Please describe your project with a detailed description of how it fits in with Sunlight’s mission and your goals for your project, an itemized budget (including the amount requested from Sunlight) and contact information. Mini grant applications are due by January 1st 2008.

New Tool for Researching Congress: Investigate Earmarks with EarmarkWatch.org

Help Sunlight and Taxpayers for Common Sense bring real citizen oversight to the very murky realm of congressional earmarks - the measures inserted by members of Congress into the various appropriations bills that direct funds to a specific project or recipient – at http://EarmarkWatch.org. You don’t have to be an expert on earmarks to see if they’re addressing pressing needs, favoring political contributions or are simply pure pork. With a few clicks of the mouse, this user-friendly, online investigative tool guides you through a series of steps that an investigative reporter would follow, associating different kinds of political information with each earmark, and also shows you how to use online resources on campaign finance, lobbying and federal spending for their research. You can also comment on and fact-check one another’s work, or send messages - including tips and suggestions - to others.

Richard Abott
Intern, Sunlight Foundation/ Congresspedia.org
sunlightuser2@sunlightfoundation.com