Politics

Defend the Capitol from Lobbyists - with Snowballs!

By Nicole Aro

Sadly, the snow DC got yesterday has pretty much already melted, but if you haven't yet, go throw some snowballs!

Last year, the "snowpocalypse" pretty much shut down Washington -- but it takes more than snow to stop the money from lobbyists and special interests flowing in Washington.

Introducing Capitol Defense, a free, online game that pits you against the special interests and lobbyists spending increasing amounts of money to overcome the puny levels of congressional willpower. And how do you protect your congressional reps? Using snowballs, of course.

This was a fun project on the tech end, as well. As Tom wrote yesterday in an email,

This game was a nice chance for us to see how far we could stretch HTML5 technologies (it even works on the iPhone!). It may not be the most important thing Sunlight's ever done, but we think it's pretty fun. And, of course we're always eager to find new ways of illustrating just what unbelievably large amounts of special interest money flow through this town.

We don't really want you to throw snowballs at lobbyists, but we do think that money and influence in Washington need to be more transparent. If you're interested in learning more about lobbying disclosure reform or getting involved, check out sunlightfoundation.com/policy/lobbying. We're also drafting legislation that would make lobbying disclosure truly transparent and public by making it online and in real time, and we want your feedback and thoughts to make it better. Check it out and leave your comments on the Real Time Online Lobbying Transparency Act at publicmarkup.org/bill/real-time-online-lobbying-transparency-act/.

Full post as published by Sunlight Foundation on February 23, 2011 (boomark / email).