Common Cause of Pennsylvania has launched a new web site and blog, Our Philadelphia, to educate the public about elected officials.  Unlike many states, Pennsylvania has no limits on campaign contributions, and the online contribution databases maintained by the state and by the City of Philadelphia are barely usable with much of the data not available at all.  A search for contributions that would take minutes in a more transparent state, like Maryland, would take hundreds of hours in Pennsylvania.  So Common Cause is building its own web site and database to make this data available.  But wait, there’s more.  The site will include several features: 

• Elected Officials lookups – enter an address and find your representatives as well as a list of their top contributors [we’re excited that this lookup service is powered by our Cicero API
• Campaign Contribution database
• Election Reform advocacy – including redistricting, campaign finance and ethics
• Open Government and Transparency advocacy
• City and State Government watchdog – with a diminished print media, there is an increasing need for other organizations to supplement the normal role of newspapers

Over the next year, Common Cause/PA hopes to add additional information for Pittsburgh as well as extend the contribution databases as well as its ability to report on government activities.