Sunday was the start of Sunshine Week, an initiative of the American Society of News Editors. Sunshine Week is used to promote the importance of transparency, government accountability, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). West Virginia Watchdog will be showing you some of the groups and and tools we use to shine the light on state government.

West Virginia Watchdog uses several websites when trying to keep our state’s Congressional delegation in line.

First up is OpenSecrets.org. In their own words:

OpenSecrets.org is the nation’s premier independent website tracking the influence of money on U.S. politics, and how that money affects policy and citizens’ lives. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) launched the website following the 1996 elections.

Today, the Center has expanded the information it analyzes beyond just the Federal Election Commission’s offerings on campaign finance. OpenSecrets.org has become a clearinghouse for data and analysis on multiple aspects of money in politics—the independent interest groups called 527s committees, federal lobbying, Washington’s “revolving door”, privately sponsored congressional travel and the personal finances of members of Congress, the president and other officials.

Another good source is Taxpayers for Common Sense, which helps us track earmarks.

Taxpayers for Common Sense is a non-partisan budget watchdog serving as an independent voice for American taxpayers. Our mission is to achieve a government that spends taxpayer dollars responsibly and operates within its means. We work with individuals, policymakers, and the media to increase transparency, expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare, and hold decision makers accountable.

We pursue our mission by: eliminating wasteful and harmful programs and subsidies; increasing government transparency and accountability related to the federal budget and appropriations process; and developing and promoting solutions to prevent irresponsible subsidies.

In order to make sense of data released by Recovery.gov, we turn to the fine folks at StimulusWatch.org.

StimulusWatch.org was built to to help the new administration keep its pledge and to hold public officials to account. We do this by allowing you, citizens around the country with local knowledge about the proposed projects in your city, to find, discuss and rate those projects.

When we need helping combing through the “balanced budget” claims to find the state’s true financial condition, we get help from the Institute for Truth in Accounting.

The Institute for Truth in Accounting was created by distinguished financial and public policy experts concerned with the quality of public and private organizations’ financial reporting. It is the mission of the IFTA to encourage private and public entities to produce financial reports that are comprehensive, comprehensible and transparent and to inform the public of the importance of truthful accounting.

The IFTA actively seeks association with other public interest groups that recognize the need to improve financial reporting or want to better understand the financial effects of current accounting practices. The Institute is a non-profit, public interest group that does not advocate public policy beyond better, and thereby, more truthful, accounting.

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