AFSCME Information Highway

Source: Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, October 9, 2007

A political Web site set to launch on Tuesday plans to become a kind of Wikipedia-like destination specializing in elections, governments, and political candidates.

The idea behind PoliticalBase.com is to provide a neutral, one-stop source of information about politics (and politicians) to which anyone can contribute. Changes must be approved by a staff editor before they take effect.
Related sites:
From the Center for Media and Democracy:
• PRWatch
• Coming this Week in Congress
• SourceWatch
• The 2008 U.S. Congressional Elections Portal
• U.S. presidential election, 2008
• Congresspedia
• TobaccoWiki
See also:
• Beta of LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources) Database
• Citizendium

Posted by Info Center at 5:20 PM in Elected Officials | Elections | Government | Politics | Permalink

Source: Kansas City Star, August 26, 2007
(subscription required)

Alaska is the only state that pays its governor more money than its highest-paid coach. Of course, Alaska doesn't have college football.

In most states, the top-ranking official is paid significantly less. Here is a list of each state's governor and his or her salary (GOV), the highest-paid coach from a state-funded school (HPC) and the highest-paid football coach (HPFC), if he's not his state's highest-paid coach overall.

Posted by Info Center at 2:09 PM in Compensation | Elected Officials | Permalink

Source: The Center for Public Integrity, 2007

"The Center for Public Integrity researched state requirements on the filing of Personal Financial Disclosures by all three branches of state government — executive, legislative and judicial — to help the public hold officials accountable and determine the potential for conflicts of interest." [Note: see the drop-down menu on the right hand side to view copies of reports filed by members of the executive, judicial and legislative branches in the 50 states.]

· Many States Fail Governors' Disclosures Survey - Top grade eludes all but one.
· Governors' Disclosure Ranking
· Governors' Disclosure Comparison

Posted by Info Center at 4:39 PM in Elected Officials | Permalink

Source: Resource Shelf, 2007

Governors
The National Governors Association offers a database of containing bio data for both current and past governors.
Many criteria makes creating lists easy. Fields include:
Keyword/ Biography, Religion, Race, Related to other Governors, Colleges attended, Higher offices served, Military Service/ Branch, Awards served, Awards/Honors, Was He or She a Physician or Dentist
As expected you can also limit to dates served in office. Finally, you can browse by state, look or a link to each state in the left rail.

Mayors
The U.S. Conference of Mayors web site is home to a database that provides:
Searchable Directory of U.S. Mayors for Most Major Cities (Mayors at a Glance)
Search by:
Name, City, State, Population
Also, available is the 2007 Mayoral Elections Center that includes:
-Download Scheduled Elections for 2007 (.pdf document)
-List of November 2006 Election Results
-Search the USCM 1999-2005 Mayoral Election Results Database
-View All 1999-2005 Mayoral Election Results by city or date of election

Posted by Info Center at 5:50 PM in Elected Officials | Permalink

Source: Federal Election Commission, June 13, 2007

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) now has a new, interactive map on its web site that displays individual contributions to the 2008 Presidential candidates. With a simple click of the mouse, a user can highlight on the map the amount of money raised on a state-by-state basis. Users also have the option of viewing contributions to specific candidates, all candidates or all candidates from a political party. The map conveniently displays the total contributions to each candidate, along with their cash on hand and the distribution of their contributions by amount.

Users may select to view contributions in specific states. The map lists contributors by name, city, amounts of donations and dates within the first three digits of their zip code. These lists can be sorted and downloaded to a spreadsheet format.
Direct to map

Posted by Info Center at 1:49 PM in Elected Officials | Permalink

Source: State News, February 2007, Vol. 50 no. 2

This is a table of state legislator annual salaries by region: 1975-2005 (CPI adjusted), broken down by state.

Posted by Info Center at 4:46 PM in Elected Officials | Permalink