January 28, 2010

Contact:
Gabriela Schneider
Communications Director
The Sunlight Foundation
gschneider@sunlightfoundation.com
202-742-1520 ext 236

President Obama Formally Adopts Sunlight Foundation Priorities in State of the Union
President calls for greater transparency in earmarks, lobbyist disclosure and fixes to
campaign finance reform in the wake of Citizens United v. FEC
WASHINGTON, DC – Last night during the State of the Union address, President Obama
made transparency a cornerstone issue for his administration this year. He called for the
establishment of a single, Congress-wide database to track earmarks; better and more
complete lobbying disclosure and a concerted effort to change the campaign finance laws to
reflect the new realities created by last week’s Supreme Court decision on the Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) case. Since these issues strongly reflect the
Sunlight Foundation’s mission, it has issued policy proposals to help Congress and the White
House achieve these goals.
"The Sunlight Foundation is extremely happy to see President Obama reaffirm his
commitment to create government transparency, end earmark abuse and disclose lobbyist
activities," said Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director at Sunlight Foundation. “We
hope to work with the President and Congress to implement solutions to bring more
information about earmarks, lobbyists and campaign finance online in real time, so it can be
made truly available to the public.”
Sunlight has long advocated for technological solutions to ensure that earmarks reflect the
public interest, and formally proposed an online, searchable database of earmark request
disclosures in March of 2008 in its Transparency in Government Act, posted to
PublicMarkup.org (http://publicmarkup.org/bill/transparency-government-act-2008-
revised/1/104/). There is a long history of lawmakers abusing earmarks, requesting funding to
build bridges to nowhere and to reward political allies, family members and even for personal
enrichment. The president’s proposal to create a centralized database with information
posted on earmarks before final decisions are made is a much needed change.

-more-
Sunlight Foundation, page 2
Under President Obama’s plan, each time a lobbyist is in contact with an elected official or
aide, that contact would be reported. The Sunlight Foundation will continue to fight to ensure
that those contacts are reported electronically, published promptly and maintained online in a
downloadable, searchable, sortable format. Sunlight believes that disclosure should include
all legislation and regulations discussed and all requests for specific services or government
funding. These policy recommendations are available on Sunlight’s Web site at
http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/agenda/
Finally, the president has called for legislative fixes for the drastic changes made to the
campaign finance system in last week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v.
FEC. It is Sunlight’s belief that this decision requires an immediate update to the entire
campaign finance disclosure law regime, and will advocate for new legislative solutions to
cover everything from who has to disclose, what is required to be disclosed, how often, and in
what form – whether the spending comes directly from corporations’ or unions’ treasuries,
from lobbyists, political parties or the candidates themselves. (See
http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2010/01/21/how-the-citizens-united-case-affects-money-
politics-and-transparency-as-we-know-it/ for more details on Sunlight’s stance on the Citizens
United case.)
The Sunlight Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit that uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make
government transparent and accountable. Visit http://SunlightFoundation.com to learn more about
Sunlight’s projects, including http://PoliticalPartyTime.org and http://OpenCongress.org.
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