Amidst the hype of the Powell Obama endorsement, some may not know of the other Powell endorsement also getting some attention: Senator Ted Stevens

Stevens is currently on trial for concealing over $250,000 in gifts from Veco, formerly an oil-services corporation, between 2001 and 2006. Federal prosecutors grilled Stevens on Monday at his trial in Washington, D.C. before the case went under deliberation last week. It looks, as Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller points out, that Steven's lawyers have secured a potential victory for their client on what could be viewed a technicality. Unfortunately, the public interest appears not to be of interest to judge Emmet Sullivan.

However, the judge has a lot of interest in the hype of Powell's endorsement of Senator Barack Obama. Why? Powell was a key defense witness in the trial. Bush's former Sect. of State apparently spoke highly of Stevens' calling his character "sterling" and that he, "would never do anything improper."

In the culture of Washington politics I sometimes wonder if character is relative. Have our politicians become immune to recognizing corruption because it is so much a part of their culture? I don't doubt that many of our elected leaders are personally pure in many ways. But in Washington, you have to wonder whether a broken system has broken down their compass of integrity.

Our friends at the Sunlight Foundation (who seem to never sleep) have unveiled yet another terrific tool. This time it's the Open Senate Project, which is modeled on the Open House Project, and will help improve public access to the Senate's work on the Web.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has endorsed the project. From the press release:

"I welcome ideas for how the U.S. Senate can use technology and the Internet to create more transparency for the operations of the U.S. Senate, and to bring us closer to our constituents," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in response to the project's launch. "To that end, I look forward to the recommendations from the Open Senate Project, which will be an open, public collaborative effort."

The Open Senate Project will include an email list and blog, which citizens and open government leaders will use to develop their recommendations. John Wonderlich, program director for the Sunlight Foundation, will lead the nonpartisan effort. He will be joined by Josh Tauberer, creator of GovTrack.us, and Jon Hencke, a former Senate staffer who now blogs at The Next Right.com.

Sunlight encourages citizens to give their input by joining the group’s email list.

The Sunlight Foundation launched a campaign earlier this year to encourage members of Congress to change their rules around internet use and include the ability to “Tweet.”

Twitter, a way to inform people in 140 characters or less of an important topic or event taking place in real time, is now being used by our members of Congress. This gives you the ability to track what your Congressperson is doing at any given moment. This is your chance to hold Congress accountable! To find out which members of Congress are “tweeting” you can upload the widget here.

Our friends at the Sunlight Foundation believe (like we do) that all legislation should be posted online for at least 72 hours before a vote, to give lawmakers and citizens sufficient time to review and debate it. The "Financial Bailout" bill was posted online for review--which was a start. But Sunlight Foundation called on Congress to go farther.

They created a petition urging Congress to wait until October 1, 2008 before voting on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. (That would be 72 hours since it was first posted online.)

You can read the petition here.

From the Sunlight Foundation's press release:

"Congress took a real step yesterday toward legislative transparency, by giving the public access to the proposed bailout legislation by posting it online in advance of floor consideration," said Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation. "But, before the bailout proposal is considered by lawmakers, it must undergo an even more important test: evaluation and assessment by Americans. That's why we are calling on citizens to sign a petition to urge Congress to wait 72 hours between when the bill was first posted online and the actual vote. We believe all legislation should posted online for at least three days before a vote to give lawmakers and citizens sufficient time to review and debate it, and this bill is no exception. This isn't a bill to rename a few courthouses; this bill is Congress's biggest intervention in the economy in decades. This important legislation deserves more time for public scrutiny."

Speaker Pelosi and the House Financial Services Committee posted the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 as a PDF yesterday in the late afternoon. Late Sunday night, Sunlight posted the text of the legislation PublicMarkup.org, allowing citizens to review and comment on the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry before the House and Senate vote on the measure. The simple-to-use blog-like layout of PublicMarkup.org lets users critique the entire bill or offer views on specific provisions, bringing citizen oversight to the legislation.

Since Sunlight posted the legislative proposals from the Treasury Department and Senator Dodd on PublicMarkup.org last week, citizens flooded the site with hundreds of comments on these iterations of the bailout bill.

A coalition of government transparency groups (which Change Congress is a part of) is asking the Senate to take a step into the modern era by requiring that all campaign finance reports be filed electronically. Currently, these reports are filed on paper requiring massive amounts of information to be digitized and further delaying valuable info from the public's view. The House of Representatives has been filing electronically for years. Whats the holdup, Senators?

S. 223 was originally introduced by Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold over a year and half ago. Since then it's been blocked, stalled, or shut down by opponents like John Ensign (R-NV).

The Sunlight Foundation has put together a simple web page allowing you to see which Senators are supporting the bill, which are opposed, and how many calls each Senate office has received.

You can take a look at the actual bill over at OpenCongress and follow the supporters and opponents (including industry and activist groups) on Maplight.org.

Passing this bill will shine light into the dark corners of governmental process, and it starts with a couple of phone calls you can make. This should be a no-brainer, but, honestly, how often have you watched your government get no-brainers completely wrong?