WASHINGTON – Nicholas Rubin may only be 17, but he’s invented a nifty way to track an age-old consideration – where politicians get their campaign funding.
Rubin, a self-taught computer programmer from Seattle, has invented Greenhouse, a browser plug-in that makes it easy to determine which industries and groups have donated to the politician.
When the plugin is downloaded, and active on Chrome, Safari and Firefox, hovering over a politician’s name highlights campaign contribution data for every Senator and Representative, including the total amount received, and a breakdown by industry and by size of the donation.
The plug-in, which uses 2012 election data provided by OpenSecrets.org, also shows the percentage of contributions from small donors (under $200) for each politician.
Rubin says he hopes transparency will educate citizens.
“If you use the extension when reading about a Congressional vote on energy policy, for example, maybe you’ll discover that a sponsor of a bill has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry,” writes Rubin in a statement released with the plugin.
Download the plugin here.
