The controversial Arizona immigration law that President Obama's administration challenged came before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday was written by the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC, the conservative group that has been in hot water recently for its role in drafting the law that has figured in the headline-making shooting of Trayvon Martin, the teenager gunned down by a Florida homeowner earlier this year.

ALEC  writes model legislation and with the intent of having state legislators pass that legislation into law. According to the Center for American Progress, at least 14 other states have considered, and in some cases passed, legislation similar to Arizona's SB 1070—a bill that gives state lawmakers the right to demand identification of persons they suspect of being illegal immigrants. The Justice Department is challenging the law's constitutionality.

Using automated textual analysis to identify matches in text among the 14 bills, Sunlight was able to identify similarities between the Arizona bill and a few of the other bills identified by CAP. The Alabama bill that became law in June of 2011 stands out as very similar to the law being considered by the Supreme Court today, and our analysis shows that it  is a closer match to ALEC's model bill than the Arizona bill is.

ALEC has lost some members because of its association with the controversy surrounding the shooting of Martin, a 17-year-old, in Sanford, Fla. by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, who has since been charged with second-degree murder (he has pleaded not guilty) wasn't arrested immediately because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. That law, which was adopted by ALEC after the National Rifle Association lobbied Florida state legislators to have it passed in 2005, made it hard for police to arrest Zimmerman because he claimed he acted out of self-defense.

Sunlight's work relies on software called SuperFastMatch. Created by the Media Standards Trust and supported by a grant from Sunlight, SFM allows for the identification of overlap between text documents at large scales and high speeds. You can examine the connections between SB 1070, the ALEC model bill and the other measures we have collected for yourself by visiting our research instance of SFM. Click the "Documents" tab to begin exploring the different immigrant-related measures we examined and their degree of overlap with those of other states.

• The Arizona Public Interest Research Group  awarded Arizona an A-minus on how it helps taxpayers find information online pertaining to  government spending. The high grade was mostly because of OpenBooks.az.gov, a state website that offers a searchable database of state expenditures. The launch of site raised Arizona’s grade from an F in 2010 to A-minus in 2011. Representative Kimberly Yee, the sponsor of legislation aimed at increasing government transparency, maintains,“People need to see where money is being spent so they can hold elected officials accountable. “ For more information, see Devin McIntyre ‘s post on the Tucson Sentinel. 
• In honor of Sunshine Week, Kentucky’s Adair County Community Voice utilized citizens to perform a local records audit. According to the Kentucky Open Government Blog, “The weekly newspaper engaged eight ‘average citizens’ to seek specific records from eight public agencies and published the generally good findings in last week's paper, with an explanation of the audit and the issues, and an editorial by Editor-Publisher Sharon Burton giving her motives.” For the most part, the audit revealed that  most institutions readily complied with the information requests. However, they found the least cooperation when they asked law-enforcement agencies for salary information. For the entire story, check out Al Cross’ post.
• This week, Tennessee lawmakers quietly sealed public records pertaining to education.  The Senate State and Local Government Committee and the House State and Local Government Subcommittee passed bills to make the results of teacher evaluations confidential. According to KnoxNews, lawmakers used a questionable exception to exempt the teacher evaluations from the Public Records Act. "So much for transparency in government," laments Kent Flanagan, director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. For the whole story, check out Jack McElory’s post on KnoxNews.
• In slightly related news, even though Tennessee’s state government ranks among the ten most transparent in the country, it earned a grade of C+ for its laws promoting transparency and punishing corruption. According to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity, Tennessee sends a “mixed ethics message.” Elizabeth Bewley points out, “The report’s authors said Tennessee’s 2006 ethics reform bill has helped, but the Tennessee Ethics Commission created by the bill hasn’t lived up to expectations.” For her entire take, check out her post on the Tennesseean.

• The Jordan-Elbridge County school district held a training session for the public on the county’s open meetings law. State Supreme Court Judge Donald Greenwood has ruled that the Jordan-Elbridge board violated New York's open meetings law in the past.  The training session was led by Robert Freeman, the executive director of the Committee on Open Government. Freeman hopes the sessions will alleviate mistrust citizens have in the school district regarding lack of transparency, maintaining, "I don't know details about the hostility that has been expressed in this school district but my hope of course is that knowledge of the law and when everybody hears the same question and the same answer at the same time it will encourage a little more peace.” For Alex Dunbar’s take, check out his post on CNY Central.

• A group of concerned citizens wants Arizona to phase out bipartisan elections in favor of Open Elections that would have the highest-polling  candidates going to the general election regardless of political party. Supporters say the proposed Open Elections/Open Government Act would put an end to small groups of partisan voters effectively deciding elections by turning out for primaries. Paul Johnson, the former Phoenix mayor serving as chairman of the Open Government Committee argues, “It opens up the elections so more people can vote in the primary election, which effectively will end up opening up government to more ideas and more people who can participate."  To get the full story, check out Joanne Ingram’s post at the Tucson Sentinel. 
• The Englewood City Council is poised to end their policy of choosing the mayor and mayor pro tem on a secret vote. In the past, the council has held a secret ballot in an informal meeting before codifying their final selections in public. Critics argue that the practice violates the Colorado's Sunshine Law. District 4 Councilman Rick Gillit says he helped push for the change to help bring transparency to a city that some say has been slow to comply with Colorado’s open-meetings law. To read more, check out Peter Jones’ post on the Villager. 
• Tennessee State Senator Bo Watson is considering a bill calling for all public notices in Hamilton County to be published online rather than in newspapers. Notices provide the public information about city and county governing bodies' public meetings as well as zoning matters, public purchases and other areas. Supporters of the proposed bill argue that the current law requiring newspaper public of public notices amount to a "subsidy" for an industry losing subscribers because of technological change. For more information, read  Tom Humphrey’s blog Humphrey on the Hill.

A recent report on how states are doing in their subsidy programs has been blog-fodder nationwide. But some of the most interesting topics that have made the rounds have been from bloggers who realize that the term transparency needs to transition from being a rhetoric used by public officials running for office to actions that actually help citizens. For these bloggers, it is not enough to just sit back and wait for what your state government promised. By recommending ways in which government transparency can improve, they are encouraging citizens to take charge of the situation and be more anticipatory. Still not motivated? See how Craig McDermott and Kathie Obradovich do it.

• The Joint Legislative Income Tax Credit Review Committee in Arizona  will be meeting to review income tax credits but the public is not invited. On the Blog for Arizona.com, Craig McDermott expresses concern about the state’s legislature that has taken a “Christmas break from transparency".

• Illinois has the most transparent subsidy programs in the nation. According to a report dubbed  “Show us the Subsidies” by Good Jobs First, the open practices of five Illinois subsidy programs, including the Economic Development for a Growing Economy Tax Credit and the Large Business Development Assistance program, have made the state the highest ranking in subsidy disclosure. Micah Maidenberg details how the state is  providing information about its economic development programs and subsidies on the Progress Illinois Blog.

• Political opinion blogger Kathie Obradovich is making a call for increasing public access to Iowa’s state government. In her “give people access to their government” post, she traces Governor-elect Terry Branstad’s promise of transparency, which includes a desire to bridge the gap between residents and their government. Obradovich, however, suggests open-mic forums, budget clarity and campaign finance disclosure are additional, complimentary ways Iowans can be given better access to their goverment. See how she describes these ways and others on the Iowa Politics.

• The policy committee of Tennessee Emergency Communications Board voted in support of making 911 calls inaccessible to the public. The Board cited the need to protect the privacy of callers but JR Lind believes that this proposal “could diminish public oversight of local emergency operations”. Referring to Frank Gibson’s article Lind cautions that this could be a year of “closing” government openness, as previous actions include the removal of transparency meetings and other public notices from newspapers, a move that leaves the state’s websites as the sole source of news about their government. More on Post Politics.

• Beginning February 17, the Kansas Nominating Commission will allow the public to attend interviews of candidates for the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judicial positions. But blogger Kathy Ostrowski is not convinced that this is enough. She thinks that the commission should not reserve the right to adjourn to executive session during the interviews and that citizens should be given a chance to provide an input in the questions posed to the candidates. While blogging on Kansas for Life, she thinks this is just a response to “citizen dissatisfaction with a closed system of lawyer-controlled appointments of the top judges.”

There are only a few days left and so many people to thank.

In Arizona, Espresso Pundit is one of my favorite local blogs.  Written by Greg Patterson who has been an elected official and worked extensively in public life.  Greg focuses on spending, earmarks, and public records.  He is also a fan of putting information online and also sharing information about legislative workshops on how bills become law.

In Kentucky, PageOne is a great blog for stories and investigating.  Written by Jacob Payne and several others, they write stories on public records and lobbyists who influence Frankfort.

In Mississippi, Y'All Politics is an online news magazine that covers all of Mississippi's news. They make sure to cover local ethics issues and lobbyist influence.  It is a great one stop shop for aggregated Mississippi information.

Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from  Missouri, Maryland, Louisiana, Arizona, and Minnesota

In Missouri, The Turner Report has a post about an earmark the Center for Public Integrity reported on obtained by Rep.  Roy Blunt.  Blunt got a 4 million earmark for EaglePicher a client of his former chief of staff Gregg Hartley. Clearly there is some revolving door can't be stopped.

In Maryland, Brian Griffiths has a post about the earmarks Sen. Mikulski has been getting for her top campaign contributors. She has gotten $42.1 million total for three companies Northrop Grumman, Thales Communications, and L-3 Communications who also have been giving her a generous campaign contributions over the years.

In Louisiana, We Could Be Famous has a post about Louisiana's Ethics Review Board trying to dodge a disclosure requirement. Government organizations who spend more than $10,000 a year have to file financial disclosure forms. However, the Ethics Review Board requested an exemption to disclosing and was granted the request. If the ethics board gets a pass I wonder what other agencies get one too?

AZ Central has a post about the city of Surprise, Arizona's  proposals to build public trust had a few financial mishaps recently and so the city decided to clean up its image. They want to hire an outside auditor to review the books; they will be creating a searchable Web site of city spending. The interesting part of the spending Web site will be that they will update the site when the checks are written not later.  I look forward to seeing the site.

Bluestem Prairie goes looking for stimulus spending. There has been a good deal of research into what the problems of tracking the money given to states has been. There is apparently no one state or federal agency that maintains a comprehensive public list of projects and no one central clearing house for everything. Recovery spending and its affects are hard to determine.  This makes judging Recovery's affectiveness impossible.

Three bloggers have some interesting stories about their Freedom of Information (FOIA) escapades.

In Kentucky, Page One has a post about the State Treasurer withholding public records.

On August 27 I filed an open records request for the following:

• All time sheets, calendars and schedules for State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach from the first date of his official service as Treasurer to present day
• Security camera footage from front entrance that would provide visual confirmation of arrival and departure of Todd Hollenbach from the first date of his service as Treasurer to current

On September 3 I received a letter from Deputy State Treasurer Mary John Celleti:

The Kentucky State Treasury is in receipt of your Open Records Request seeking copies regarding:

1. All time sheets, calendars and schedules for State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach
2. Security camera footage from the front entrance, confirming Treasurer Hollenbach’s arrival and departure.

Please be advised that the Treasury is in the process of filling said request and it may take some time to gather and review all the requested information. Due to the expansive nature of the security camera footage the request may be expected to take more than ten days. Once the documentation has been gathered and reviewed, it will be made available to you. If you have any questions, please feel free to call

It’s now been a month since I filed the request, so I decided to poke around a bit. Low and behold, with the help of great sources, I’ve learned that Todd Hollenbach and his henchman are trying to prevent access to the requested documents. Documents and media which, according to four people in the office of the Treasurer, prove that: Todd Hollenbach barely ever shows up for work, spends most days at a country club and goes out of his way to do absolutely nothing. So you know he’s got something to hide.

This is a pretty harsh claim but the point should be clear.  ANSWER YOUR FOIA REQUESTS!  By deciding to not disclose lawmakers hurt themselves in the public eye.  Then they have to deal with sharp bloggers picking on them.

In Arizona, Expresso Pundit has a post also about withholding public records and how a Councilman helped him get the records he wanted.

Surely you recall the Desert Divas. That's the ultra expensive VIP Prostitution ring that police busted last year.

Back in February, it looked like the case was going to break wide open...Prosecutors were naming names

Today, Phoenix police offered to the media a list of thousands of names in two hefty PDF documents.

Unfortunately, the list was a bust...so to speak. Prosecutors did indeed name names, but they didn't provide addresses. That meant that none of us had any idea if "John Smith" was THE John Smith that you know from the office, or tennis, or church. Without the addresses, the list was essentially meaningless.

So I went to Phoenix Police and said I wanted the whole list....you could hear the laughter from quite a distance. Every media outlet in the state wanted the full list and Phoenix PD wasn't going to provide it.

I pointed out that the clients on the list were neither victims or witnesses and that the record was obviously public.

The Phoenix PIO who called back, said simply, "Good Luck".

After a few months of dead ends, I finally went to my Secret Weapon--Sal DiCiccio. Councilman DiCiccio thinks that if information is public that it should actually be available to...you know...the public. DiCiccio sent his right hand guy, former Tribune writer Hal DeKeyser to take care of it and by golly, they stone walled him too...but persistence pays off.

I got a call last week that the list was available on CD. Well, you are the public too, So here's your copy.

It is great to see an elected official so committed to freedom of information that they will get the information for citizens. Also thanks Expresso Pundit for posting the results online so others can find it.

In Ohio, River Vices submitted a FOIA request and got a unique response.

Under Ohio's Open Public Records Law, I am requesting a copy of the written agreement between the city and the Portsmouth Kiwanis Club for a playground in Tracy Park. A week ago, on Sept. 18th, 2009, at a public meeting in Tracy Park,in response to a question, Rick Morgan of Kiwanis publicly acknowledged that such a written agreement existed, but neither he nor you have yet made that agreement public. Please notify me by email when I can pick up a copy of that agreement.

Thank you.

Robert Forrey

---

Per your public records request;

You are correct in stating that at the meeting in the park the fact was "acknowledged that such a written agreement existed". What I don't understand is why you feel that a confirmation of this fact would necessitate a publication or distribution of the mentioned document.

As you requested, a copy of the document has been prepared for you to pick up at my office. Our regular office hours are from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, Monday through Friday.

If there is anything else that I can do for you, which is required by law, don't hesitate to call my office. If it isn't required by law then don't bother asking, because I think that you're a worthless piece of st and I wouldn't ps on you if you were on fire (my opinion). You're a poor, lonely, jealous, old man with aspirations of being a writer. You write your lies and uneducated opinions on people and issues from behind the safety of your slobber stained keyboard with the hope that somebody will read them that doesn't know you and believe that you're more than the pitiful, broke-down, lizard-looking thing that you are, in my opinion. Get a life old man. On second thought, don't bother..............

I do have a question for you. Do you have family and if so do they even like you?

Looking forward to your next Internet issue of "FORREY'S FOLLIES".....NOOOTTTTTT

With little respect for you, Mayor James D. Kalb

Now that's freedom of speech at its best, in my opinion.

The mayor of of Portsmouth does get points for answering the FOIA but it seems that he might want to work on his prose.

Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Arizona, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Nevada.

In Arizona, AZCentral reports on how for the first time ever citizens will get to choose whether their state representatives get a pay raise or not.

In Massachusetts, Hub Politics reports about state senate republicans’ new blog.

In Mississippi, Alaskan Jambalaya has a post about Hank Paulson lobbying efforts before he became Secretary of the Treasury.

In Nevada, Vote Gibbons Out is asking people to dig into the state level campaign finance reports. Apparently they are difficult to decipher them when they are hand written. I wonder if the FEC has that problem with Senate campaign finance reports since the Senate is not required to file electronically. Indecipherable election information should become a thing of the past. www.Pass223.com

As reported by Government Technology:

Arizona just launched a new Web site, Arizona's Openness and Saving Strategies Project.  From the site:

These are tight times, and Arizona’s budget is no exception. That’s why we need to find every good idea we can, and put those ideas to work to help state government agencies save money. This site contains news about Arizona’s budget, as well as examples of savings strategies that have already been implemented in Arizona and are working now. State employees can also use this site to find cost-saving measures in use at other agencies. Just as importantly, you will find ways to Submit Your Own Ideas to help our state cut back even further.

This new project opens up the buget process so state agencies can collaborate with each other and citizens can share their ideas for saving money with officals.  It also has budget related news and gives information on how the state budget is produced.

With this project Arizona is really exploring new ways to deal with its budget deficit.  Not to mention that inviting the community at large to participate in fixing their state financial problems empowers citizens to really invest in their state and not just hope politicians will fix it.   I wish Congress would think about more ways like this to involve the wisdom of the masses to help solve problems.  It would be very democratic of them.

Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and Congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Oregon, Nebraska, and Arizona.

Oregon Earmark's Blog points to the Favor Factory and then highlights earmarks that the Oregon congressional delegation received. He quips "While I wear and like New Balance shoes, not sure they need the $2.4 Million earmark for cold weather equipment."

New Nebraska has an interesting post about how the influence of lobbying has changed from term limits. Apparently requiring a new herd of legislators to come in every few terms causes lobbying to be harder because they have to start from scratch with new lawmakers. It will be interesting to see how the lobbying industry evolves in Nebraska to deal with this.

In Arizona, Expresso Pundit posts about earmarking and how it bypasses the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place. He also examines some earmarking that Arizona legislators are doing.