This represents the notes I took during a short presentation by Dan Newman and Sean Tanner of MAPLight.org yesterday.

MAPLight is a site designed to follow where money and politics meet and how money can affect legislation. It was developed in Drupal by Advomatic.

Connections that we know exist, but are hard to research and document will be much easier to glean using this tool. As an illustration, MAPLight cited an example in California. Who would think that mandating good fresh fruits and vegetables in school lunches would be a bad idea? Legislation was drafted in California (I think) to ensure that this would be the case. The food processing lobby swung into action and the language changed so slightly. The word "fresh" was changed to "nutritious" allowing for a hole--canned fruit in syrup could be shown to be nutritious. It seems that MAPLight is able to show a connection between these kinds of political decisions and money that is passed along.

All political issues can be involved. There are stories behind each of these decisions. These stories can become powerful tools when brought into the light.

The project is to be taken a step further--not just money and political decision but the addition of different kinds of data. Imagine being able to select a bill in Congress and then filter it by location, neighborhood, socioeconomic data, and then lay on top of that the decisions that are made and the money that has influenced these decisions. Such a tool becomes a means to hold legislators accountable for how they vote and the decisions that are made.

MAPLight.org hopes to ultimately expand the project to all states in the Union.