Schuman on Money in State Judicial Elections

Daniel Schuman of The Sunlight Foundation — and a member of our community — has posted Money in State Judicial Elections, on The Sunlight Foundation Blog.

Mr. Schuman’s post discusses two new information resources that make interesting use of law-related data:

• The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change, a new report by Professor James Sample of Hofstra University School of Law et al. This report employs campaign finance data respecting U.S. state judicial elections, litigant data, and polling data, to explore how campaign donations may be improperly influencing judicial decisions and adversely affecting public opinion respecting judicial integrity; and
• TransparencyData.com, a service of The Sunlight Foundation, The National Institute on State Money and Politics, and The Center for Responsive Politics. This service provides access to campaign finance data for U.S. judicial and other elections, including the elections described in The New Politics of Judicial Elections report. The service also furnishes data on U.S. state and federal lobbying, grants, and contracts. The service enables users to perform analysis on these data or build new information services with these data.

Mr. Schuman emphasizes how these resources make use of open government data respecting the judicial system to increase transparency and accountability.