Daniel Schuman

OPENSECRETS, THE NONPROFIT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION dedicated to disclosing the role of money in politics, laid off one-third of its staff last month due to financial difficulties. This sparked understandable concern in newsrooms, think tanks, and research institutions that rely on OpenSecrets to transform government information into usable data.

The failure to prevent the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol was the focus of a joint Senate committee hearing on Tuesday. The three men most responsible for protecting the Capitol—Steven Sund, the former chief of the Capitol Police; Michael Stenger, the former Senate sergeant at arms and doorkeeper; and Paul Irving, the former House sergeant at arms—all testified alongside Robert Contee, the acting chief of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department. All three looked the worse by comparison.

The Congressional Transparency Caucus announced it will hold a briefing on Friday, June 7th, at 2 p.m., in the Capitol Building, room HC-8 to discuss tools that make legislation information more readily available. This briefing will include discussion, tech demos, and the opportunity to ask questions from panelists that have created these tools.