NORWICH – Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the launch of “Project Sunlight” last week, a new Web site he says will help citizens more easily access their elected officials’ campaign finance, voting and spending records.
The site – www.sunlightny.org – also provides information on lobbyists, offers financial reports detailing the activities of charitable organizations and shows what private and public entities have contracts with the state and for how much.
“Project Sunlight is an effort by my office to promote your right to know and to monitor governmental decision-making,” says Cuomo in a statement on the site. “This Web site – the first of its kind in New York – allows you to easily access statewide government information that until now has been scattered and difficult to retrieve.”
Site browsers can search databases trailing the activities of their elected officials to view who they’ve received money from, what bills they have sponsored and how they’ve spent state money on projects in their district.
“It’s the taxpayer’s dollars being spent to run government and they ought to be aware of what’s going on. I think it (Project Sunlight) is a great idea,” said Assemblyman Cliff Crouch (R-Guilford), who represents Chenango County in the 107th Assembly District. “I’ve always encouraged people to get involved and be involved in their government, because it’s important to make an intelligent, well informed decision when they have the chance to cast a ballot.”
Cuomo claims the site is the first of its kind in New York state and says it’s still in an “initial” phase. He said it will expand and change in 2008 as suggestions come in and more records are made available.
Cuomo added: “Our goal is to promote disclosure as well as to increase government’s transparency and accountability to you. As James Madison, the Founding Father of the Bill of Rights observed, ‘Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.’”