USF Transparency in Government Project

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USF Transparency in Government Project

• Campaign Finance Disclosure/Visualization
• David Wolber, University of San Francisco

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

• Motivation for Project
• Funding data at federal/state levels
• Demo of whosfundingwhom.org
• Issues and Future Directions

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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.

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Accessibility is Limited
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Limited Accessibility

• Journalists
• Watchdog organizations
• Only most egregious violations checked
• Voters

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Campaign TransparencyNeeds

• 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.

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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/li
  st.aspx?viewname

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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
10000
David Wolber
Joe Contributor
Employee Of
Awarded Contract By
City Department X
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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 theyve 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.

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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

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Thank You

• whosfundingwho.org
• David Wolber (wolber_at_usfca.edu)
• [phone]
• Email us or come by and see us we want detailed
  feedback and ideas