All is not well in the Aloha state. “Sunshine” advocates including Rep. Barbara Marumoto are rising up to oppose a recent attack on Hawaii’s open government. A new bill that was introduced earlier this year is set to intentionally delay responses to public records requests. SB2858 “Creates a process for an agency to obtain judicial review of a decision made by the Office of Information Practices relating to the Sunshine Law or the Uniform Information Practices Act, and clarifies standard of review.” In other words the bill ironically referred to as “relating to open government” instead takes a jab at everything open and has been likened to a closed government bill.

In summary, SB2858 will make it more difficult for the public and media to find out what is going on in state government by:

• Delaying the release of information under the Uniform Information Practices Act.
• Forcing the public to spend money on legal fees in order to access data which should be made available in the first place.
• Giving agencies the freedom to challenge an Office of Information Practices (OIP) ruling in court.
• Setting state agencies in opposition against each other in a bid to comply with practices within the Uniform Information Practices Act.

It goes without say that if this bill is approved, Hawaii’s history of maintaining a decent record in keeping an open government will be tainted. Worse, we will have no idea what the government is doing and when it is doing what it’s doing -- unless of course if we are willing to go to court to find out. Effective July 1, 2030, the anti transparency bill sadly has the support of Gov. Neil Ambercrombie who is already said to be a secretive governor.

Allowing government agencies such as Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (a supporter of the bill) to appeal unfavorable Office of Information Practices rulings -- as this bill proposes to do -- shows that government is clearly putting their own first and the public second. Hawaii’s legislature has a Submit Online Testimony where the public can send in their testimonies and hopefully convince everyone involved that this bill is bad for transparency -- just as Common Cause Hawaii did.

 

Common Cause Hawaii Testimony on SB2858

Sunshine Week presents the perfect opportunity each year to recognize the importance of transparency and open government. This year, with the ever-increasing influence of often secretive super PACs in our elections, the need for transparency is even more clear.

We have an opportunity for greater disclosure right now. A new bill -- the DISCLOSE Act 2012  will, if passed by Congress, require:

• Corporations and other outside groups to stand by their campaign ads -- with their leader and top financial contributors disclosed in the ads.

• Public reporting by corporations, unions, super PACs and other outside groups to the FEC within 24 hours of making a campaign expenditure or transferring funds to other groups for campaign-related activity (of $10,000 or more).

• Corporations and other outside groups to disclose campaign-related spending to shareholders and organization members.

• Lobbyists to disclose campaign-related expenditures in conjunction with their lobbying activities.

In the wake of the two-year-old infamous Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. FEC  -- which allowed unlimited and undisclosed money to flow into our elections, an increase in new super PACs has now led to an increase in the amount of money making it’s way into our elections -- to the tune of over 74.8 million (and counting)! This is no cheap change.

Help get the word out by writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Let your community know that it’s time to expose dark money behind our elections. It’s time to pass the DISCLOSE Act 2012.

Though we can see what these super PACs are spending their money on, the rules that let us see who’s giving them money are weak and don’t let us see the whole picture. Without disclosure, we can’t know if the ads we’re watching are funded by corporate VIPs with hidden agendas or everyday people like you and me.

If you want to see if your rep is a co-sponsor on the bill, look them up here and encourage them to keep up the support. If they are not co-sponsors, let them know too that it’s time to open up our government.

The bill has not yet made its way to Senate, so make sure to ask your senator to introduce a complementary bill and bring transparency into our government.

Writing a letter to the editor is easy and takes only a few minutes with our online tool -- we’ll walk you through each step. Lawmakers pay close attention to what goes on in the newspapers of their districts. A letter to the editor will help raise awareness about the need for transparency and accountability in your community. And it sends a clear message to your representative: we’re not afraid to speak out and demand transparency in our elections.

Want to learn more about the DISCLOSE Act? You can follow our updated blog posts about it here:

What does a former offshore energy company employee and a church Minister have in common? Aside from being members of Florida’s “Sunshine Brigade” -- a First Amendment Foundation coalition of open government and citizen activists who “have been chosen for membership because of their commitment to government oversight and holding government accountable for its actions” -- both Jerry Couey and Alan Isaacson have a burning desire to bring more “sunshine” to Florida.

Jerry and Alan, have fought tirelessly for 5 years to force TEAM Santa Rosa, a publicly-funded economic development organization, into compliance with Florida's open government laws. They successfully lobbied their state attorney to investigate the TEAM's sunshine violations and have brought a significant amount of public attention to the issue. A native of Milton, Florida, Jerry is no stranger to citizen activism. His experience in new media and technology spurred changes in email and social networking policies in both Santa Rosa County and Escambia County which in the past had prohibited use of private email and social networking sites for public business.

Undaunted by the challenges of dealing with public officials, Jerry has continued his fight to open up Florida’s open meetings law -- providing Floridans a chance to speak during public meetings. In march last year, he was selected by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors for his role in bringing attention to citizens’ first amendment rights. Using his community website, santarosaspeaks.com together with his cable television show Mediacom Santa Rosa Week , the former offshore worker for an energy company has generated the attention of over 10,000 views with 19 subscribers who have come to rely on his citizen input on how to improve their state’s sunshine laws.

As for Alan, his journey to becoming a volunteer for streamlining requests for public record emails, started when he discovered inconsistencies and back door politics aimed at benefiting specific Political Action Committees in Santa Rosa county. Now actively serving as an adviser to county boards that are not fully aware of the state’s open government laws, Alan is using his System Coordinator background to help other residents keep “sunshine” in their local government.

These Sunshine Brigade members have proved that you don’t have to be a specialist to demand for openness from government. But being a member with the First Amendment Foundation -- one of Florida’s longest advocate for protecting sunshine in the state sure does come in handy. Jerry and Alan also have been involved in putting together a discussion on the importance of open government and open-access "sunshine" laws in Florida. The Sunshine Summit is organized as part of this coming Sunshine Week (March 11- 17) by The Florida Society of News Editors and the First Amendment Foundation. The event will take place on March 12 and will shade some light on accessing public records and meetings.

We recognize Alan and Jerry for their tremendous work and are proud to have them as nominees for our OpenGov Champions initiative!

Less than a week away to Sunshine Week , a surprise attack on transparency in Kentucky is threatening to change the state’s Open Records Act. On February 28, Rep. Johnny Bell sponsored HB 496  -- a bill that will -- if approved, exclude private companies who have at least 25 percent of their revenue coming from public projects -- from Kentucky’s open records requests.

John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader talked to Rep. Bell who assured him that he “respects the public’s right to know”. But it’s interesting that the same Representative sided with private companies in construction, highway building, engineering and architecture who are complaining about the time and money they waste on legal fees associated with public records requests.

Bluegrass Institute’s Logan Morford is reminding Rep. Bell and colleagues who they represent and that it -- the American public, including citizens seeking “sunshine” in Kentucky:

• Taxpayer money comes with strings attached whether it is spent by government or with private industry. Private companies take public money with this understanding. If you don’t want to be subject to open records laws, don’t take public money.

• Quasi-government agencies like the Kentucky League of Cities would still be subject to existing transparency laws. Government cannot choose winners and losers. In this respect they would be choosing which recipients of taxpayer money are to be held accountable and which are not. That is unacceptable.

• The legal fees that are too burdensome only come into play in one scenario: The records request is challenged. Costly and burdensome legal fees can be avoided by simply turning over records related to taxpayer money.

HB 496 is scheduled for a hearing this Thursday before the House State Government Committee. Here is to hoping all involved in voting on this bill will seriously consider the public’s right to know what their government is doing.

A while back, we wrote about the different ways in which Opengovernment.org helps bloggers and activists alike to track legislative data in their states. You can read all about it here , here and here. The three-part series explained how you can use this tool to follow important bills in your state, while learning more about your local representatives. We’re always looking for feedback that helps us revamp our tools to create more user friendly interfaces -- so we’d like you to share with us what you’d like to see out of a tool that lets you see into your state government.

We would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions regarding the kind of information you are interested in seeing about your state -- to make it more open and accessible. In this Opengovernment.org user survey, we invite you to explore the site here (if it’s your first time learning about it) then share your impressions.

Not sure where to start? Just to give you some ideas, I recently looked into the Campaign Contributions section which highlights the money trail in each state. Each of the six featured states has a detailed section on campaign contributions, grouped mainly by industry or sector. It is no secret that one of the biggest problems we are facing in our democracy is undisclosed money in politics, with special interests lurking around our legislators to push for their own motives instead of ours. What data we do have, however, (from the National Institute on Money in State Politics is in opengovernment.org, with the top 20 contributors and their top 20 recipients highlighted. You can follow the money trail by issue or sector. For example, care about choice issues? Political Action Committees (PACs) that work on issues having to do with abortion and choice contributed a total of $190,874. Take a look at California’s money trail to see: A brief glance at California’s Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (the top most recipient of money from these groups), reveals that at $21,152.00 she received the most in campaign contributions, and Emily’s List may be one of the top contributors on these issues, in at $142,356.

So, as part of the revamping process for Opengovernment.org, perhaps a tool that links top lobbyists to state legislators would be an in-depth way of fully understanding who connects the money to the power.

You too can play around with the site and see what you can find then send us your suggestions.

To take the Opengovernment.org survey, please click here:

Over two months ago, a special committee was created to offer recommendations on how to reduce the national deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. The bi-partisan Joint Select Committee, also known as the Super Committee, is comprised of 12 members and has until November 23 to come up with solid recommendations that will be used as guidelines in shaping our nation’s deficit budget conundrum.

When talk of formation of the committee started making the rounds, we immediately went to work creating a website resource to inform and share information on all things Super Committee.

Our grassroots campaign to make sure that citizens are kept in the loop about what the members are doing kicked off with enthusiastic responses from the public eager to open the Super Congress.

Contacting the Super Committee

Our friends at Open Congress created better self organizing tools to help you simultaneously contact all three of your members of Congress and let them know that you are tracking their actions. If you have a representative on the Super Committee, let them know you demand transparency. If your representatives aren’t on the Super Committee, ask them to support H.R. 2860 and other Super Committee transparency initiatives. Learn more about Open Congress’s tools here:

Join the campaign

On the home front, we asked you to join hands with us by signing on to tell the Super Congress to be open .

Write to Congress

We also provided you with a customizable letter to write to your representative or visit your local congressional office with tips on how to make the most out of your trip. Lastly, we asked you to ‘sing it from the rooftops’ by using the hashtag #opensupercongress to share your visit or letter with your social media network. All the while, giving you four options to reach your respective member of congress. We did not stop at that, we wanted to hear how your district visit to your representative went, so we sent out a survey encouraging you to share your experience so others can be inspired to visit their leaders too.

The Committee itself has also aided the process further by designing an official website where citizens can now write directly to the members with suggestions on what they think can be done to reduce the country’s deficit. But voicing your ideas on how we can beat the deficit is not enough. We have to ensure that while they are negotiating these issues, all meetings and hearing are publicized and any financial contributions attached to a member of the Committee, disclosed.

With the introduction of the Deficit Committee Transparency Act, which calls for members and staff of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to disclose lobbying activities and campaign or member-designated political action committee contributions, the campaign for openness gained even more momentum. Last month, we complimented this momentum by hosting a conference call with our partners at Public Citizen to discussion updates on the Super Committee. Click here to listen to the audio from the conference call. It was also the perfect forum to bring up experiences for activists to made the trip to their representatives’ offices. Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg and Public Citizen's Craig Holman were on hand to answer participants questions and an audio recording will soon be available for those who did not make it to the conference call.

A movement forms

In addition, over 5,230 signers citizens have signed on to support the campaign for a transparent Super Committee -- you still can here.

Blogging: the element of each one reaching one

We still encourage local bloggers to take up this issue. Local bloggers play a crucial role in spreading the word to their communities and followers -- and as the Committee members are also representatives and senators to some of the local bloggers, it becomes a civic responsibility to inform the constituents represented by these members. Maybe you would rather illustrate your message, we made it easier by creating this video which you are welcome to use in your blog post. Several local bloggers including Jason Williams, Stefan Passantino, Charles Davis and Celeste Meiffren (who loved our video) Michael Signer  have already started spreading the word!

The Super Committee is continuing its work, though behind closed doors. We have less than a month left. Join us to help demand an open and transparent process.

 

This week, we will be bringing you more updates including actions planned to open up the Super Committee. Stay tuned...

In this third segment on unveiling opengovernment.org and how you can use it to track legislative issues, we are going to talk more about issue areas. What are the most prevalent issues  in your state? Do you know the bills about these issues? I took a look at issues in Texas, which range from Campaign Finance and Election (with 425 bills introduced), to guns (with 58 bills proposed).

In summary, the ‘Issues’ section highlights bill subjects attached to legislation and makes them easier to understand and access by using legislative data from Open States Project. Plowing further into the Texas Campaign Finance and Elections issues, we chose HR 197 as a random bill to follow. A quick look at the bill shows that it focuses on suspending limitations on conference committee jurisdiction and was sponsored by Rep. Jim Pitts.  To recap, as OpenGovernment.org primarily lets you track state legislature that is important to you, each time you navigate to a bill, you will see a roundup of the latest action taken on the bill including any news and blog coverage and any twitter mentions.

An interesting thought to explore is whether the total number of bills proposed (or passed) about certain issues is indicative of how legislators in a particular state feel about those issues. But what every concerned citizen should pay attention to is the trends in the types of bills being introduced in their state. Yes, the legislators craft the language, but you can provide your input in how you want to be governed -- by contacting your representative and making sure that they are representing your best interests and asking them to sponsor legislation on issues that you care about.

And if you want to critically analyze the ratio of bills introduced to those that are actually passed, you can use an example of the ‘Crime issues’ in Texas. There are 1086 bills. You can get a sense of how may have been signed by the governor just by browsing through. And if you’re a blogger seeking to connect with your communities on legislative issues in your area, Opengovernment.org provides background information on issues in the bills you are tracking while sharing an informative perspective on your state legislature, with your audience.

Have you had a chance to play around with Opengovernment.org? Share your impressions in the comments section.

Next week, we will highlight campaign contributions and how special interests play a role in state legislation.

In continuing with our series on OpenGovernment.org, this time we take a look at how you can learn more about your state representative. What is your district for example? If you are among the six states already highlighted in the OpenGovernment.org state profiles, you can search for your district using either your address or zip code. You will then be provided with information on your state legislature including Senate and Assembly. In case you are not sure who your House of Representative or Senator (in Congress) is, the search also gives you specific results right up to the national level.

Using our earlier example of SB 22 as a bill that is still being deliberated on, we are going to do a walk through on how you can engage your legislature regarding this bill (or any other). A click through the ‘recent actions’ shows the bills that had the most recent action taken on them. We can see that SB 22 was sponsored by Joan Ballweg (R-41) , Garey Bies (R-1) and Alberta Darling (R-8). What is cool about OpenGovernment.org is that is shows the key sponsors of a bill and includes their profiles to illustrate what they are interested in and the issues that are important to them. At the same time, if you are curious about the status of the bill, you can tell that it was last voted on on September 12 and was referred to a joint committee on Finance by committee on Senate Organization, with 5 Ayes and 0 Noes.

OpenGovernment.org summarizes the issues within a bill, providing you with a better understanding of what the bill is all about. So for SB 22, the main issues are Labor and Employment, Senior issues, state agencies, education, business and Consumers and insurance. Say you are passionate about labor and employment issues, you can contact Rep. Joan Ballweg (R-41), one of the co-sponsors of the bill, either through her District or Capitol address letting her know how you feel regarding your particular issue. The background information on a specific legislator provided by the site enables citizens to make informed outreach to their leaders. And for bloggers or political writers, it is a resourceful way of staying on top of time sensitive bills while following the influence behind the legislators. Also, constituencies governed by Rep. Ballweg can track her legislative profile, and see that she is a member of the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Rules, the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, and, of course, the Wisconsin Joint Legislative Council. With this kind of information, you now know that she is one of the Representatives with major influence, whose vote you may want to influence -- depending on what you are advocating for.

To top it all up, a history of all the bills that have been sponsored by a specific legislator, is displayed under ‘bills sponsored’. A quick look at the most recent bills sponsored by Rep. Joan Ballweg (R-41) all reveal that they all relate to education or insurance. The dynamics between legislators and their constituents does not always have to be complex. You can start by learning more about the people who draft the rules that govern you and Opengovernment.org helps you do just that!

In the next segment will talk about the most prevalent issues in states and how you can track the bills around them.

A new initiative to track, learn and share state legislative information was hatched last year when Open Government.org launched its website. Created by the Participatory Politics Foundation in partnership with Sunlight Foundation, OpenGovernment.org is a free and open-source public resource website for government transparency and civic engagement at the state and local levels. So far, portals for legislative data have been created for six states including California , Louisiana , Maryland , Minnesota , Texas and Wisconsin with plans to expand to all 50 states.

One of the most viewed bills on OpenGovernment.org so far has been SB 11 - the controversial bill about Wisconsin’s state finances and collective bargaining for public employees. The fact that it has been viewed 2,184 times is indicative of the public’s interest in learning more about the specifics of legislation that will affect them. Using state legislative data from Sunlight’s Open States Project, the site lets state-focused activists track updates to the bill, read aggregated news and blogger updates, and contact their state representatives.

To illustrate how OpenGovernment.org provides an interactive bill tracking experience, let’s take a look at an on-going bill. SB 22 , another Wisconsin bill proposes the creation of a Charter School Authorizing Board that provides additional charter school authorizers while eliminating the limit on the number of pupils who may attend virtual charter schools. Education bloggers interested in seeing any actions taken on the bill, can view the number of votes on it since it was introduced in February this year to its current status. You can also check out their free and open-source Miro Community for videos on various branches of state legislature to embed in your blog post.

For political bloggers and issue-based organizations, OpenGovernment.org offers a great way to stay current and updated on a given piece of legislation. If you’re a developer and interested in adding data to the site for the benefit of the public, check out OpenStates.org to learn more about what’s underneath the hood of OpenGovernment.org.

Perks, anyone?

And if you are still wondering why or how you should get involved, why not take a look at the perks of joining the OpenGovernment.org platform:

Badges: Still looking for cooler ways to be involved? How about you check out OpenGovernment.org’s state badges  promoting your use of open data with easy-to-embed code that you can use on either your news site or blog.

Email list: You can also sign up to keep up-to-date with developments this resource as they roll out to all 50 U.S. state legislatures and more than a dozen major cities.

Open Government Google group: If you prefer keeping the conversation going in the developers forum, you can join the Open Government Google group

This is the first of a weekly series on OpenGovernment.org and how you can use it to make state legislatures more interactive. Next week, we will take a look at members of state legislatures and how you can contact them.

An awakening call to self educate ourselves on open records and open public meetings came when in June this year, the nation's capital  became the venue where two reporters were arrested for video recording a public meeting. Whilst before, Washington DC was not among the states included in the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press' resource on states open records and open meetings laws, this time around, DC is among the 50 states. Most liberating, the revisions on DC's Open Meetings Act allow the recording of public meetings as long as "the person does not impede the orderly conduct of the meeting".

• A new and improved guide on all things open government at the state level has been produced by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Some of the impressive features to check for free and also available on both CD and online, include categories on accessing information on government budgets and updates on public records and open public meetings laws. Open government expert Charles Davis offers more on Art of Access.

• In a new effort to open Chicago, the administration of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel announced that all crimes will be posted on line for residents to make their own analysis of crimes in their neighborhood. Blogger Matt Fratz is not too sure this is well-intended. In his opinion, transparency should be implemented through the creation of law not in the number of arrests made by the police. And by not publishing the names of police officers involved in criminal acts -- as the Mayor’s office is doing -- the purpose of transparency is defeated. Read more on the appropriately named Political Fail blog.

• About six months after the U.S. Public Interest Research Group gave Arkansas an F for transparency in their state website, legislators have finally passed the Arkansas Financial Transparency Act which will ensure the creation of a website showing all the state’s expenditures. David Kinkade is singling out an important factor:  open government does not have to be expensive He mentiones how the website creation is on time and under budget. It’s all on the Arkansas Project.

• A special legislative committee has been created to review Vermont’s public records exemptions. Nancy Remsen has the buzz on how the committee has already started prioritising topics whose exemptions should be reviewed -- beginning with the tax exemptions. See how privacy is being redefined by the committee on VT.Buzz

• Following the stipulations of New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act, Gloucester County Prosecutor, Sean F. Dalton, encouraged the county’s local government officials to increase their email usage as a way to promote transparency. John Paff has more on NJ open government Notes.