Happy Sunshine Week, everybody! As they say, “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” and I want to share a little bit about arguably one of the best tools for transparency in state politics: the Virginia Public Access Project.
I’ve returned time and time again to the Virginia Public Access Project, affectionately known as VPAP, to gain an understanding of campaign spending and fundraising in critical state and federal elections, legislation and the lawmakers who introduce it, and to keep up with political news in a fast-paced news cycle.
And that’s just a sampling of the tools offered by VPAP. The organization also offers a civics navigator and other educational tools to help educators mold their students into informed and engaged citizens. It offers a cache of helpful data visualizations for folks who learn from looking at charts instead of spreadsheets (I am one of those people). It also offers a comprehensive look into how lobbying works in Virginia, and it maintains a database of lobbyists and the organizations they represent.
In short, VPAP is a critical tool that helps Virginia’s political reporters to shed light on the often opaque world of money and politics.
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