The Sunlight–Berkman confab on providing more access to more information about politics and government was terrific. The thirty attendees are (by and large) working fulltime with their sleeves rolled up to provide citizens with better information about how our government and political system work. Some of the information is presented in slick graphics and some is pretty raw, but all of it can be used by any citizen to peg opinions to facts, and to find illuminating patterns and relationships. This is unalloyed good for our democracy.

So, here’s my question: Most of the attendees are progressives, although some are non-partisan. But even the people behind the non-partisan services tend to be left-leaning. Yet what these folks are devoting their time to building are tools that help all citizens no matter how they lean—seeing patterns of private infliuence on public events, exposing corruption. Why is it that these tools for a better democracy are coming from the left? Or are there similar tools developed by the right that I don’t know about? [Tags: berkmansunlight sunlightberkman sunlight berkman politics]

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