Show me the money: Teen invents way to track where pols get cash

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.

Neal Augenstein

Neal Augenstein has been a reporter at WTOP since 1997. Through the years, Neal has covered many of the crimes and trials that have gripped the region. Neal's been pleased to receive awards over the years for hard news, feature reporting, use of sound and sports.

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