CitizenJoe is helping E-thepeople build a national voter guide covering all congressional races - and we need your help!

Tell us what questions you think we should ask all the candidates for the House and Senate.

Submit 1-5 questions below. We'll take the top 10 most popular responses to use in a poll next week - whittling those down to a final five.

By Lyle Hickman and Billy Hallowell, VoterWatch Staff

Today's Transparency Recap starts way up north with our coldest state, Alaska. According to Talking Points Memo's, Republican Senator Ted Stevens was "arraigned last week on seven counts of false statements". After a federal indictment, without stagnation, Stevens regrouped and organized a rally. According to Talking Points Memo: 

By Eric Margulies, VoterWatch Staff

This week’s edition of the Transparency Recap commences with the
implementation of a major step in the arena of governmental transparency. On
August 1^st, The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of
2007 saw its first act of realization take place as information pertaining
to lawmakers’ assets, liabilities and lobby-related-expenditures and gifts were
posted on the House Clerk’s website.

However, a quick perusal of the disclosure database proves slow and somewhat
difficult to navigate given its complex interface. In addition, the files can
only be viewed in .PDF format meaning that for many who are without the software
required to open .PDF files, the information is lost. Dan Auble at the Capital
Eye Blog writes about the current flaws with the system of disclosure and how
the Center for Responsive Politics is already seeking to remedy them:

Simple ideas (Occam’s razor) for the 2008 elections.  No one candidate seems to have taken any position, with the exception of condemning the other.  If a platform is developed at the conventions, here are a few examples of what might not only palatable to the populace, but might even make a difference.  Anyone can change, only a few can make a difference.  In addition, 5 or 6 of the 12 would be great and any more than that would be a landslide.

From one of citizenJoe's readers. Thought it was posting for all to see:

I'm sitting at a small used car dealership in North Carolina and it probably seems as far distant from the hustle and bustle of financial markets and Washington D.C. as one could get. Good! It is my personal belief that we have heard every story, from nearly every angle, every perspective and every political point of view out there until we quite frankly have had our fill. What about real people, real life, and actual experience to at least get a distant glance of real world life for the "common Joe?" I know that the polls and reviews are out there trying to do just that, but really now, how much can we really glean from them?

Here then, my current wonderings and comments. Today I am amazed by the young couple that just left my office. Here are there top three questions they asked that left my head aching:

#1 If we don't make our payments you're saying the bank can take our car?

#2 If we are late on our payments does it count against us?

#3 Nobody cares if we pay those credit cards do they?

This Week on Capitol Hill

With an historic housing bill under its belt, Congress turns this week to tie up as many loose legislative ends as it can before heading home for a month of sun and fun (and, yeah, some campaigning).

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He chairs the Hoover Task Force on National Security and Law and co-chairs the Hoover Task Force on The Virtues of a Free Society; is co-founder and director of the Israel Program on Constitutional Government; sits on the Policy Advisory Board at the Ethics and Public Policy Center; worked as a senior foreign policy advisor to the Giuliani 2008 campaign; and served as a senior consultant to the President’s Council on Bioethics.

There has been a lot of recent concern about private contracting in Iraq; I have commented on it myself. While browsing the New York Times site a few days ago, I came across more, and not entirely what I was expecting. I don't know about you, but when I think about private contracting, I think of security agencies like Blackwater USA. But no: the subject of scrutiny is this time electrical contractors.

According to this article, there have been, "... at least 283 electrical fires [that] destroyed or damaged American military facilities," and this is just in the past six months; back in 2006, a fire at a base close to Tikrit resulted in the deaths of two soldiers. Soldiers have a lot to fear if they go to Iraq - they should have to worry about electrical outlets.