I really owe everybody here a big update.
And my gratitude.
I started my new job yesterday, which I got largely through my participation on Daily Kos.
Since gaining employment through blogging is probably pretty rare, I'd like to explain how a few things that I wrote here ended up getting me a job in DC.
I'd also like to explain how my job as Program Director for the Sunlight Foundation might have to do with the Daily Kos community.
In the runup to the November elections (if you can remember that far back in blog-time), I proudly engaged in fighting for a new democratic majority. I had never done anything politically active before, save voting and being vocal.
Inspired by the rising activist spirit, I volunteered for the Jim Webb phone from home phone-banking program (even though I live in Pennsylvania--well, until Wednesday I did).
Volunteering for that program and encouraging others to do so gave me a small taste of being empowered by online activism, and after the election, and getting a majority in both chambers, I was hoping to see some of that activist spirit maintained beyond the election. The spirit of getting something done through cooperation was addictive.
It only took about a week, until, when reading a BooMan23 diary about caucuses and committees, I wrote this comment about learning about becoming legislatively competent, and had an exchange with Annan about getting people on Daily Kos to split up and monitor Congressional committees on their own.
This started a landslide of ideas that progressed really quickly to this point.
I attempted to set up a page on the dkosopedia (I hadn't ever edited a wiki before). My shortcomings there were quickly outpaced by experienced contributors who helped make our page into a huge attractive index of wiki pages for collaborative watchdogging. The Congressional Committees Project was started.
My focus with the project quickly become trying to figure out how to help people do the work of watching Congress. This was pretty daunting. I have a degree in Philosophy, and have professional experience in Telemarketing, and no political background. I did a lot of reading.
One of the first diaries I wrote next was a plea for committees to publish transcripts online (not just testimony), to make committees' proceedings meaningfully public, through the Internet.
Things got a little more intense for me then.
One of Speaker Pelosi's staff members read what I wrote, and suggested that I get involved in a project for the Sunlight Foundation, which was considering designing a project to give recommendations to the House of Representatives on how they can make technological reforms to create a more web-accessible legislature.
We even got some press coverage.
I started consulting for Sunlight, and helped design and coordinate the Open House Project, along with Matt Stoller (of MyDD), Rob Bluey (of the Heritage Foundation), and David All (a media strategist and tech person). Two organizers with backgrounds from the left, and two from the right.
From there, we've been organizing a huge collaborative report on transparency in the House. This project has been a truly bipartisan undertaking, with contributors including Hill staffers and political and media figures (and bloggers) from the right and left. Web-designers and technologists like the designer of GovTrack.us gave weight to our dialogue, adding the perspective of the potential impact of greater access to political information. Creating a more transparent House will have consequences.
The report is now designed and prepared, and has been sent to the printer. We're having a press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday (10-11 AM) which could potentially be covered by C-SPAN (if they decide to cover it) to discuss our recommendations and the Open House Project.
After visiting DC several times to coordinate work on our report, I secured a position at the Sunlight Foundation, as their Program Director.
Today is my second day.
I'm going to be working on bringing together a community of transparency enthusiasts, and coordinating some of the Sunlight Foundation's advocacy projects. We have a lot to look forward to doing.
The Open House Project is only a first step in creating a meaningful online movement of engaged activists who understand that the internet has the potential to redefine the way citizens interact with their government. Creating meaningful awareness has tangible results. Even if you're not an addict sifting through documents from the House Judiciary Committee at 1 AM, collaborative projects on websites like Daily Kos, or TPM Muckraker have staggering potential.
When so many people point a few minutes of their leisure time to activities that are collaborative and constructive, the whole becomes far more than the sum of its parts. We end up changing the way that political incentives work in Washington.
To me, that's an important point. We don't need to find smoking gun documents. We don't want them to exist in the first place.
We want lawmakers who make decisions in the interest of their constituents. We want to create an incentive for good legislative decisions. We want corruption to be visible so that it isn't such an attractive option for so many lawmakers.
That's why I'm so excited about my new position. I'm going to be working to empower communities like this one, who see value in good politics. I want it to be the case that good legislative decisions are the same thing as good political decisions.
To do that, we need information to be freely available.
You all have already proved that the interest is there. We're ravenous.
It's kind of amazing, really. Would anyone have assumed that there are so many people connecting the dots, all over the country, at any time of day; at work, in the evening, over coffee in the morning...? I wouldn't have.
But you do exist, as unlikely as it may seem to me. The blogosphere is here, like it or not, and it's a political force. Access to political and legislative information is the driving force behind what we do; getting better access makes us into the media.
By us, I mean all of us. Not just the left.
I want Democrats' decisions to be scrutinized just as much as I want Republicans analyzed. Corruption is just as tempting for both sides. How great would it be to see a DailyKos of the right? I'd like to watch their flamewars, and compare them to ours. Have big debates. I don't think a real analog exists yet, but I assume that it will someday soon.
That said, I should also recognize the awesome contributions of this remarkable community. I remain addicted to Daily Kos, and am really very grateful for the contributions of this community, to both politics generally, and to my career.
Thank You.
I look forward to reading all of your work. (now, while I'm at work, without risk of getting in trouble for it.)
-John Wonderlich