“An Incredible Run…An Awful Lot of Fun”

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends, The Outer Loop

Tags

"The American Prospect", "Tom Paine", Campaign for America's Future, Center for Responsive Politics, Ellen Miller, Pike Permanent Select Comittee on Intelligence, Public Campaign, Ralph Nader, retirement, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, Sen. Committee on Governmental Affairs, The Sunlight Foundation

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Today mark’s the final day of public service (1968-2014) for Ellen Miller.

Ellen’s first work in Washington was with Ralph Nader at his Center for Responsive Law and at his Center for Auto Safety. She then worked with Sen. Abraham Ribicoff at his Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and also with the Pike House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Following her government service, Ellen worked for two journalistic enterprises, Tom Paine and The American Prospect and also directed the “Project for an Accountable Congress” at the Campaign for America’s Future.

Most of Ellen’s work, however, was invested in the three organizations she created and lead, The Center for Responsive Politics, Public Campaign, and The Sunlight Foundation. All three groups have been focused in different ways on the issues of money and politics, on how our elections are funded, and on accountability and transparency in government. All three organizations continue to exist.

Ellen told a gathering of friends and co-workers last week, “It’s been an incredible run…I’ve been extraordinarily lucky…and I’ve had a lot of fun.” She also said she is “not one bit wistful” as she happily looks towards her retirement and has no plans other than some extended travel, lots of photography, and spending time with her three grandchildren.

PS – For a bit more on Ellen’s retirement, see her Time to Pass the Baton.

Schooled by My Daughter

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends, The Outer Loop

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Amazon, Amazon's Smile Program, Embedded Contributions, Luch Bernholz, The Sunlight Foundation

Those of you who have nothing better to do than read MillersTime may have seen my post last week (Shameless Promotion) where in I touted my wife’s Sunlight Foundation. I wrote about how anyone can designate her organization to receive 0.5% of the cost of all eligible purchases from Amazon (or these contributions could be directed to any of the more than one million organizations participating in this Amazon Smile ‘give back’ program).

A number of you objected to supporting Amazon in any way, writing that this mammoth organization’s business practices among other things contribute to putting independent bookstores out of business, hurt local taxation, and take traffic away from local businesses.

My view was that as long as people are buying from Amazon, why not have some of the cost of those purchases, even though it is a very minor amount, be contributed to local or national charities?

It did not take long for one of my daughters (ERM) to set me straight on Amazon’s Smile Program and this issue. In an email the day I posted Shameless Promotion, she told me to read the first four paragraphs of a post by Lucy Bernholz of Philanthropy Wonk, which I quote here:

Shameless Promotion

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends, The Outer Loop

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Amazon's Smile Program, Charitable Giving, Ellen Miller, Money and Politics, Open Govenrment, Open Secrets, Public Campaign, The Center for Responsive Politics, The Sunlight Foundation, Transparency

Have I got a deal for you!

If you use Amazon for on-line shopping, you can have them automatically support your favorite charity (their participating charities now number almost one million). They will contribute 0.5% of your eligible purchases to the charity/charities you so designate.

Obama – “Transparency President No More”

16 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

John Wonderlich, President Obama, The Sunlight Foundation, Transparency

Most readers of this website probably know I have long been a supporter of Barack Obama and even recently spent five days in Ohio working for his reelection.

Also, many of you know that my wife Ellen Miller has worked for years on the issue of money and politics and is currently the Director of The Sunlight Foundation, an organization she co-founded seven years ago to focus, among other things, on the issue of transparency in government.

So with those two acknowledgements, I link to a blog post by the policy director of Sunlight, John Wonderlich, where in he has come to believe President Obama is clearly now part of the problem of money and politics and cannot be taken as someone who can help clean up the system, something Obama promised to do when he ran for the presidency in 2008. If I remember correctly, he promised to have the most transparent administration ever.

Now, John says, “It’s time to stop worrying about how President Obama can help fix the system of campaign finance and instead worry about how we can fix what he has created.”

See the details of why John has come to this conclusion and why he now blames Pres. Obama for contributing to the problem in this short post, Transparency President No More.

How Come She Doesn’t Give Up?

14 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends, The Outer Loop

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Data Driven Democracy, Ellen Miller, Personal Democracy Forum, The Sunlight Foundation

Now and then folks ask me what my wife Ellen is doing.

Or, if they know something about what she has done, they ask, “How can she continue to do that after all these years? Doesn’t she get discouraged.”

Well, if you have 12 minutes and 18 seconds and want to understand what Ellen does, what her Sunlight Foundation is doing, and why she believes so passionately in her work, check out this YouTube video from a speech she gave the other day at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City.