whosfundingwhom.org

USF Transparency in Government Project

Campaign Finance Disclosure/Visualization

David Wolber, University of San Francisco

whosfundingwhom.org

Co-Sponsors

The project has been funded by the Leo T. McCarthy center and the City of San Francisco.

whosfundingwhom.org

Outline

Motivation for Project Funding data at federal/state

levels Demo of whosfundingwhom.org Issues and Future Directions

whosfundingwhom.org

Disclosure and Accessibility: Current Status On-line Disclosure (getting there)

Implementation behind law, in SF Loopholes, e.g., late filing, addendums

Data visualization (output) is far behind. sfgov.org/ethics

Limited resources, especially software developers.

whosfundingwhom.org

Accessibility is Limited

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Limited Accessibility

Journalists

Watchdog organizations Only most egregious violations

checked

Voters

whosfundingwhom.org

Campaign Transparency:Needs More on-line filing Visualization tools

Graphs, e.g., funding trails Views that integrate various data Automatic flagging of potential

violations Data mining– Analyzing the data to

find interesting things.

whosfundingwhom.org

Fed and State solutions Federal: opensecrets.org

Center for Responsive Politics

State: http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/campaign/ http://cal-access.ss.ca.

gov/Campaign/Candidates/list.aspx?view=name

whosfundingwhom.org

Idea behind our project: City and University Collaboration

Fill the gap in resources for city. Students work on real projects. Encourage public service. Build some real software to help

city/community.

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Current Status of Project Lobbyist database and on-line forms

deployed this April. Campaign funding Visualization

whosfundingwhom.org Relational view of funding chains

Tabular Graph

“Launch” April 1. Basis for data mining, integration,etc.

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Demonstration

See http://bay.cs.usfca.edu/tgpGraph.htm

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Future Goals

Integrate multiple data sources Flag potential violations Mine data for hidden relationships Allow users to input

data/associations Special Election/Filing Date views

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Integrating Data

David Wolber

City Department X

Joe Contributor

Employee OfAwarded Contract By

$10000

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Integrating Data Sources

State Filings

Other Cities and Counties

Data Standards?

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Integrating Lobbyist and Campaign Finance Data

Does a contributor employ a lobbyist? If so, what issue is the lobbyist hired to promote?

Lobbyists must report if they’ve prompted someone to make a contribution.

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Data within Ethics Commission.

Independent Expenditure Database 461 Major Donors Political Consultants

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Contracts/Voting

City Contracts/Permits Awarded Voting Records

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Flagging Possible Violations

Sometimes duplicative filings are required. e.g., cross-checking RCPT database

with Independent Expenditure DB. Are RCPT committees contributing

to other committees (a violation) Negative cash balances

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Geographical Queries

For instance, funding by neighborhood or district.

Note that this information is not in the redacted data now online at Ethics Commission.

whosfundingwhom.org

Potential Projects

Identify on-line data sources Appointees, employed_by,

contracts_awarded. Use whosfundingwhom.org and

suggest modifications, additions, and directions.

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Trends in Information Systems Collaboration and the power of the

many e.g., wikipedia, del.icio.us, slashdot Collect and organize now scattered data All kinds of legal issues (Feinstein case,

Kennedy assasination accusations) How to moderate Who is liable?

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Trends in Information Systems XML and web services

Standard data formats Separate presentation from data Mashups/aggregators

E.g., Craigslist/Google maps

Semantic web

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Human input of Data The Internet has a lot of data that

is free text, not structured. e.g., voting on issues, news

Administer/Researcher/Expert/public can identify and input data (e.g., wikipedia)

Objectivity Issues

whosfundingwhom.org

Thank You

whosfundingwho.org David Wolber (wolber@usfca.edu)

(415) 422-6451 Email us or come by and see us –

we want detailed feedback and ideas