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Webliography of Political Websites

2005 BALLOT MEASURES - By THE INSTITUTE ON MONEY IN STATE POLITICS STATE MEASURES, 2005, By THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON MONEY IN STATE POLITICS, SEPTEMBER 28, 2006 - table of contents:

  • TABLE OF CONTENTS
    Executive Summary
    Contributors Across State Lines
    Methodology
    Banning Same-Sex Marriage
    Lawsuit Liability in Washington

2006 Independent Expenditures - INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURE ACTIVITY SUMMARIZED

Abramoff Ties to White House More Extensive Than Previously Known - Committee on Government Reform - Friday, September 29, 2006 --  Following Mr. Abramoff's guilty plea in January, President Bush and other top White House officials issued repeated statements that Mr. Abramoff was a virtual stranger to the White House. The documents reviewed by the Committee tell a different story. They show that between January 2001 and March 2004, there were 485 lobbying contacts between Mr. Abramoff and his associates and White House officials.

Center for Responsive Politics Predicts '06 Election Will Cost $2.6 Billion - WASHINGTON—This year’s intensely competitive election for control of the House of Representatives and Senate will be the most expensive midterm election ever, the Center for Responsive Politics predicts. Candidates, national political parties and outside issue advocacy groups will spend roughly $2.6 billion by the end of 2006 to influence the 472 federal contests around the United States and pad the war chests of incumbents not running this year.

CQPolitics.com -- 2006 Election Forecast Map  - elections, campaigns, and politics news and head

CleanUpWashington.org - website is the on-line face of a grassroots campaign undertaken by Public Citizen, a national public interest organization, that seeks to rid our nation's capital of entrenched special interest influence-peddling.

election 2006  - Ask.com Web Search

Elections 2006  - some of the topics covered are:

  • CANDIDATES - Congressional Candidates | Congressional Districts l Forecasting | Michigan Candidates/Proposals | State Candidates/Proposals
  • CAMPAIGN - Advertising | Campaign Finances | Candidate Resources | Lobby Groups l Lobby Group Ratings | Media Coverage | Platforms | Political Parties | Public Opinion Polls

Election Preview 2006  - What's changes, What hasn't and why (75 page PDF document)

Federal Election Commission  - examples of what you can find:

  • Provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain/Feingold) -- Summarizes the major provisions of the new campaign finance law, with references to FEC rules and other material.
  • Presidential Election Campaign Fund -- Explains the rules for public funding of Presidential campaigns including primaries, conventions, and general election candidates. Also gives FEC estimates of Fund activity in 2004 including possible shortfalls for primary matching funds.
  • FEC Enforcement History -- Lists cases closed by the FEC which have included civil penalties of $50,000 or more from 1980 to the present. Includes MUR number, brief description of the violation(s), and total civil penalties for the case along with specific fines for selected respondents.

Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors: 2006 - This report presents the findings of the Cato Institute's eighth biennial fiscal policy report card on the nation's governors. The report card's grading is based on 23 objective measures of fiscal performance. Governors who have cut taxes and spending the most receive the highest grades. Those who have increased spending and taxes the most receive the lowest grades.

Hired Guns - The Center for Public Integrity - WASHINGTON, October 12, 2006 — Over a three-year period ending in 2005, nearly 1,600 former lawmakers across the country were registered at some point to lobby state legislatures for special interests, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. More than 1,300 ex-lawmakers were registered to lobby in 2005 alone.

Nation Taxpayers Union & National Taxpayers Union Foundation - 2006 Congressional Candidates  - In each Congressional election cycle, NTU surveys candidates about their positions on important tax and budget issues. We believe that sharing this information with our 350,000-plus members is critical to the development of a well-informed citizenry.

National Taxpayers Union Presents: General Election Ballet Guide: Election 2006: The Taxpayers Perspective - when it comes to fiscal policy, candidates are only a part of the electoral calculus. Thanks to the initiative and referendum process, many important issues can go directly before the voters, and the November 2006 election will
feature an unusually large number of state and local tax and spending questions. (5 page PDF Document)

Opensecrets.org--Money in politics data  - Here is the type of information you can find on this site:

  1. Track an industry. You may want to start with the industry you're working in now. We have more than 80 different industries profiled in our industries section, with political contributions going back a decade. 
  2. Check up on the candidates. Perhaps you're an undecided voter, or just curious about the money behind the current election. We have profiles of every congressional and Senate race in the country, as well as the presidential race.
  3. Check out your own backyard. Where are the contributions coming from in your area, and which political candidates are they going to? We'll make it easy for you to find out. 

Our Private legislatures - The Center for Public Integrity - financial disclosure statements filed across the country in 2006 in most states will be available online at the Center for Public Integrity's Web site. Click on a to access the only warehouse of its kind. Or, select a state at www.publicintegrity.org/iys and, under the "Documents & Databases" section, click "Legislator Personal Financial Disclosures." The Center has collected these documents since 2000 — more than six thousand filings each year — and posted them online. These documents can shed light on what personal interests might influence lawmakers' votes and legislation.

Project Vote Smart - American Government, Elections, Candidates and Voting - Thousands of candidates and elected officials. Who works for you? Who is seeking your vote? Project Vote Smart, a citizen's organization, has developed a Voter's Self-Defense System to provide you with the necessary tools to self-govern effectively: abundant, accurate, unbiased and relevant information. As a national library of factual information, Project Vote Smart covers your candidates and elected officials in five basic categories: biographical information, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and interest group ratings. What would you like to know? Access our library of information through either the menu on the left hand side or the links above.

Rating the Governors By: Mike Hofman - Inc.com - The Daily Resource for Entrepreneurs - With Arnold Schwarzenegger and 25 other governors up for reelection, we look at who among them has earned the entrepreneurial vote.

RealClearPolitics - Founded in 2000 by John McIntyre and Tom Bevan, Chicago-based RealClearPolitics.com (RCP) is America’s political web site for intelligent opinion, news, polls and analysis. Each month, more than 500,000 visitors from across the political spectrum go to RCP to take the pulse of American politics. With leading-edge technology, RCP culls the best columns, magazine articles, and web write ups to deliver readers news from all points of the political compass and covering all the important issues of the day. By tapping into millions of weblogs and hundreds of newspapers every day, RCP has become a trusted filter for anyone interested in politics.

Republican Campaign Theme Debunkked: Social Security for Illegal Immigrants - FactCheck.org - Republican Campaign Theme Debunked: Social Security for Illegal Immigrants - Twenty-nine ads and counting feature the claim with varying levels of truth and distortion.
October 10, 2006
Modified: October 11, 2006 
 
Staff Report, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, 109th Congress, Tom Davis, Chairman, Henry A. Waxman, Ranking Member, September 29, 2006 -  93 page PDF Document. Sample of contents:

  • Executive Summary
    I. Background
    A. Jack Abramoff’s Lobbying Practice
    B. Senate Report
    C. Guilty Pleas
    D. The Committee’s Investigation
    E. Document Production

Welcome to FedSpending.org - This website, created by OMB Watch, is a free, searchable database of federal government spending. To begin searching, select either the Grants or Contracts tab at the top left side of this page. You can easily switch back and forth as you search.

Tools - The Center for Public Integrity - you can search the following:

  • 527 Database Search
  • Iraq/Afghanistan Contractors
  • Local Prosecutors
  • MediaTracker and InfluenceTracker
  • Pentagon Contractors
  • Private Military Companies
  • State Lawmaker Assets
  • State Lobbying
  • State Party Donations

VOTE411.org - Launched by the League of Women Voters Education Fund (LWVEF) in October of 2006, VOTE411.org is a "one-stop-shop" for election related information. It provides nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information on the following aspects of the election process:

  • Absentee ballot information
  • Ballot measure information (where applicable)
  • Early voting options (where applicable)
  • Election dates
  • Factual data on candidates in various federal, state and local races
  • General information on such topics as how to watch debates with a critical eye
  • ID requirements
  • Polling place locations
  • Registration deadlines
  • Voter qualifications
  • Voter registration forms
  • Voting machines 

Will Foreign-born Voters Be a Significant Force in Statewide Elections? Naturalized Immigrants Who Vote Number in the Millions - Tomás Rivera Policy Institute - 2 page PDF Document

11/3/06