In our continued effort to highlight the anniversary of January 2010's Citizens United decision, this month's weekly roundups will take a look at what local bloggers across the country are saying about the ruling. First, we took a look at bloggers from the primary states. Last week, we looked at bloggers from the East coast states. We'll be ending our coverage by rounding up local blogs from the West coast states, where many campaign donations derive.

• San Francisco's Political Blotter covered Common Causes’ Amend 2012 campaign to reverse the Citizens United ruling. According to  Josh Richman of Political Blotter, “A constitutional amendment will take years to pass, coming far too late to stem the tide of money that’s already flooding this year’s election, but organizers say this effort at least will give outraged voters a voice and inject the issue into November’s vote, forcing candidates to take a position on it.” The campaign's initial drive for petition signatures will focus on Colorado, Montana and Massachusetts; that might expand to Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio and Washington. Common Cause President Bob Edgar said Americans “have lost faith in Washington, they don’t think the government works for them anymore.”
• Despite 2010’s Citizens United ruling, Montana state courts upheld the state's law banning corporate spending. According to the court, laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction "furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” Opponents of Citizens United in Montana worry that a large influx of corporate money has the potential to alter the course of elections and politics in the state. A former house representative maintained that, “Montana, with its small population, enjoys political campaigns marked by person-to-person contact and a low cost of advertising as compared to other states.” For the whole story, check out Patrick Genova’s post on State of Elections.

Transparency advocates in California are drawing inspiration from the Public Online Information Act (POIA) to pursue disclosure improvements in California. POIA was introduced this Congress by Rep. Steve Israel in the House and by Sen. Jon Tester in the Senate.

The new transparency organization govUNLEASHED has chosen the California Public Online Information Act (CPOIA) as its first major initiative. The proposed legislation would require any information that "reveals government agency operational conditions and their capacity to consistently deliver cost-effective public services to U.S. taxpayers" be posted online. This would reduce the burden on state resources that is created by the numerous requests submitted under the current system, according to the organization's website.

On the federal level, POIA would require Executive Branch agencies to publish all publicly available information on the Internet in a timely manner and in user-friendly formats. It would also create an advisory committee to assist in developing government-wide Internet publication policies. You can visit Sunlight's policy page for more information, including a video introduction, to POIA.

• The Austin Independent School District agreed to release a report that deals with the closing, repurposing, and consolidation of nine schools in Central Texas. The district was supposed to release the report to The Austin American Stateman several days prior to a school board meeting scheduled for Monday. However,   district officials later said they would only release the document if the newspaper’s editors and reporters were willing to wait until 10 PM Monday night, several hours after the meeting would have taken place. The school district claims that the report was actually a “working draft,” which exempts it from the state’s open records law. Curt Olsen remains unconvinced, maintaining, “transparency with conditions is not transparency." Read more of his take at the Texas Budget Source.

• The Attorney General of Massachusetts has just released a new website to ensure all meetings are in accordance with the Open Meetings Law. Members of the public, press, municipal officials, and public bodies may access its determinations by searching for key terms or phrases or by actions ordered. According to Jefferey Roy, “The Open Meeting Law supports the principle that the democratic process depends on the public having knowledge about the considerations underlying governmental action. It requires that most meetings of governmental bodies to be held in public.” Find out more at the Franklin School Committee Blog.

• According to Max Brantley, Little Rock’s city hall is violating transparency laws. Two days after Brantly filed an FOI for accumulated city data on ward redistricting, none have been provided. The custodian of the documents has not replied, as law requires, to his FOI request. City manager Bruce Moore claims they have published the only document pertaining to redistricting, however,  Brantly disagrees. He asks readers, “Do you trust them to be any more forthcoming about decisions on spending their new half-billion dollars?” Read more at the Arkansas Blog.

• Former city council candidate and California attorney Mauren Sundstrom  filed a complaint with the San Bernardino County District Attorney alleging that Upland City Council committed two open meeting law violations. She alleges that these meetings violated the Brown Act, which allows the public the opportunity participate in meetings of local government agencies. Sundstrom maintains that she wants city council to realize they may not be as open as they think they are. Read Sandra Emerson’s  post on Inland Politics to find out more.

• New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has made good on his campaign promise to increase his own transparency by launching a new website called CitizenConnect. This website provide citizens with details about his schedule and allows them to conduct online town halls with him. Jimmy Veilkind has been critical of Cuomo's transparency record in the past and sees this as a step in the right direction. Cuomo hopes the site will provide “an open forum for New Yorkers to interact and participate in their government.” Find out more on Veilkind's take on the new website at Capitol Confidential.

 

• According to a study done by The Sunshine Review, a nonprofit that uses a transparency checklist to evaluate state and local government websites, the state of Florida has a B grade for online transparency. Despite several Florida county websites receiving A+ grades for online transparency, the overall grade average was weighed down by the low marks given to the state website MyFlorida.com. The site earned a B due to its tough-to-navigate search function, not providing information on state-paid lobbying and agency lobbying contracts, and not providing "comprehensive information" for making public records requests. Find out more about Katie Sanders' take on Florida's ranking at the Miami Herald Naked Politics Blog.

 

• Cook County, Illinois just launched an online open county data catalog. For its template, Cook County used the Model Local Open Government Directive, which was designed to fill a need for open government policies  expressed at CityCamp Colorado. Bryan Gryth, Vice-President and Director of Colorado Smart Communities maintains, “Today is a good day for open government and the citizens of Cook County because they have a more transparent county government and that transparency will hopefully lead to a more informed citizenry that can hold their government accountable.” Check out Sebsatian James' take on the  campaign on the Cook County Blog.

• San Francisco's oldest municipal Sunshine Ordinance was established and extended thanks to the San Francisco Bay Guardian.  They are now reporting that enforcement of this ordinance was left to an ethics commission that simply would not discipline recalcitrant officials, thus leaving the task force powerless to give citizens the openness they have a right to. She maintains that this oversight allows government departments to lie about embarrassing public records with little impunity. See why Terry Francke describes the Sunshine Ordinance as a "cloud of inaction" at CalAware Today.

 

by policy intern Eric Dunn

Budget transparency for the state of California is the subject of California Common Sense, a new website launched by Stanford University students and alumni. It includes reports and transparency tools that dig into the California budget and open data up to the public. Sunlight recently highlighted similar efforts in Minnesota and Oregon.

One of the tools available through CACS explores budget expenditures. This feature lets voters click on an issue area (like K-12 education) to see which agencies are spending money on that issue broken down by expenditure type.

Tools developed by third-party entities, like CACS, can help make the budget process at the state level more transparent. CACS is also circulating an online petition to Governor Jerry Brown that requests that more information about the budget be made available to the public.

As Sunlight has covered before, California is one of the many states that is in dire need of transparency. A recently released report [pdf link] from the Pacific Research Institute offered up some policy recommendations after examining the situation. The free market think tank published their report during Sunshine Week and focused primarily on reforming open-records and open-meetings laws. The author of the report noted,

Recent incidents like the City of Bell pay scandal show that California’s open-records and open-meetings laws are in need of reform. Public pay is the public’s business, along with the debates, decisions, and actions of government and the outcomes of government policies.

In addition to looking at the widely publicized scandal in the city of Bell, the study compares open-government laws with other states using a number of scholarly rankings. According to the BGA-Alper Integrity Index of 2008, California ranks 45th for its open-meetings laws and 17th for its open-records laws. According to a database from the 2010 Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project (CAP), California ranked no better than a 5 (somewhat open) in any of the nine categories that pertain to open meetings and for open records, the state scored a 3 (somewhat closed) in 40 categories and a 2 (mostly closed) in 13 categories.

The Sunlight Foundation is enthusiastic to see more organizations spur discussions of open government and encourage brainstorming of solutions. Among the many policy recommendations, we were particularly excited to see the online posting of public meetings and minutes, as well as making records available online with all fees stated upfront.

I’m proud to present this independent research project by our summer intern Mike Liu.  Mike looked at his home state of California, the recent Bell salary scandal and the need for transparency at a local level.  -  Nicko Margolies

When I first heard about the exorbitant salaries of top officials in Bell, California, my initial thoughts concerned college, not politics.

Last year I participated in student government as a freshman Senate mentee, working closely with student Senators in order to better understand university governance.

Though I obtained firsthand insight into effecting change on campus, many mentees and I left incredibly disillusioned by the lack of transparency and accountability in student government.

Both new and experienced Senators missed mandatory meetings on a whim. Furthermore, attendance at Senate committee meetings was painfully sparse: Senators often found themselves struggling to establish quorum, even when student organizations' budgets were on the line. This was particularly troubling, considering Senator salaries (compensation many students didn’t even know about) were based on nominal committee leadership and participation.

After a controversial and unproductive year, a new batch of Senators were elected and sworn in, leaving many unaddressed problems destined for repetition.

Reading the LA Times investigation, I couldn't believe the striking similarities between the Bell fiasco and what I had seen on campus.

The Bell scandal

In the relatively small, low-income town of Bell, City Council members' inflated salaries were safely hidden from the public eye. Year after year, Bell Councilmen received over $7,800 per month for sitting on boards of various agencies including the Community Housing Authority, the Surplus Property Authority, and, ironically, the Public Financing Authority.

What's worse, as the LA Times reported in July, these boards did close to nothing, holding meetings that sometimes lasted for as little as a single minute.

These same Councilmen were also responsible for the more infuriating and heavily publicized part of the Bell story - the extraordinarily bloated salaries of Bell's top officials, including former city manager Robert Rizzo's $1.5 million annual compensation.

Though the corruption displayed in the Bell scandal is of an obviously different magnitude than the carelessness of the student Senate, they are both pieces of a far-reaching set of problems. Fueled by a lack of transparency and citizen participation, unaccountable leaders were given extra room to behave in an opaque and irresponsible manner.

In the case of Bell, corrupt officials went unchecked and unnoticed as they pocketed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of taxpayer dollars.

Small steps forward

As much as we’d like there to be a quick fix solution or a panacea for local corruption woes, there simply isn’t one. While detailed investigations, voluntary salary cuts, and a slew of resignations are necessary first steps, they have relatively few implications for the long term.

Outrage centered on bloated public officials is justified, but turning that energy into permanent solutions is the crucial next step.

Public equals online: salary edition

Last week, California State Controller John Chiang announced that cities would be required to disclose salary information online. This was a great step for local transparency in California, and having the state encourage financial disclosure at local levels is a promising sign.

However, it is ultimately up to individual cities to make sure that the data they are disclosing is both understandable and comprehensive.

Published data should include basic annual salary information as well as a detailed breakdown of benefits packages and other perks. An independent 2010 report [pdf] by Laguna Hills City Council Candidate Barbara Kogerman lists “obscure compensation factors,” which add to compensations while slipping past disclosure requirements. These benefits include “management incentives, deferred compensation, contributions to private retirement programs, insurance premiums […] auto expenses, moving expenses, payouts for unused sick or vacation leave […]” and others. Although some of these compensations are included in the annual salary, many are taken into account after retirement, effectively increasing pensions without being reflected in general salary reports.

Employment contracts for officials should also be posted in an easily accessible database and updated to reflect salary-boosting addendums and any other modifications as soon as they are implemented.

A useful, meaningful online record of city salary information will include a searchable, itemized, and consistently updated database of compensation factors available for public review.

A great example can be found at the Missouri Accountability Portal. As the Sunlight Reporting Group explained last week, the website is entirely automated, and salary information is updated in real time. In addition, contracts are displayed in detail and are fully searchable. Sites like this could be scaled down and used to keep track of local expenditures. In fact, counties could establish their own “accountability portals” so that each city has a consistent, useable framework for disclosing important data.

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For more insight into local transparency, I turned to professor Raphe Sonenshein, political science chair at California State University, Fullerton. He informed me that California has a relatively expansive set of protections for transparency under state law. Although “local governments are absolutely required to comply […] what happens when they don’t?” asked Sonenshein. “That’s the Bell Case.”

Although Bell pushed the limits of non-transparency, their actions also illustrate the potential problems with California’s existing disclosure policies. Let’s look at how Bell dealt with two of California’s longest-standing pieces of transparency legislation: the Public Records Act and the Ralph M. Brown Act.

The disclosure debacle

An LA Times article last week revealed that Bell withheld public records requests beyond “the time limit set by the state Public Records Act” without explanation.

Sonenshein experienced similar roadblocks when he tried to obtain a copy of the city charter. “The person who answered the phone said she’d be happy to fax me an application for a public records request,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

It’s ridiculous that citizens would have to jump through hoops to obtain records as basic as salary summaries during a salary scandal or the city charter of a charter city.

Bell City Council members similarly disregarded the Brown Act as they held secret meetings in the wake of the scandal.  The extent to which private deliberations concerning salaries took place in the past remains unknown.

It was also through a discreet loophole that Bell City Council members inflated their salaries in the first place. A “little-noticed city ballot measure” to convert Bell to a charter city was approved during a special election. There was no real mention of the exemptions from salary regulations that such a change would cause.

The measure passed, receiving a total of less than 400 votes.

The Bell scandal reinforces the argument that California’s existing transparency laws don’t do enough on their own. Enforcement simply does not exist, and though most cities follow the rules, we know from this experience that relying merely on integrity is not enough.

A proactive commitment

Accountability is not simply releasing information in bulk. It’s also not passing nominal, unenforced legislation.

What real accountability requires is an active, honest effort from citizens and leaders. Steven Croley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, and new member of the Obama administration's Domestic Policy Council, wrote a blog post in 2007 that is relevant in this discussion:

“Government is open not just because it discloses information about what it has already done, but because it solicits citizens' input about what it is doing.”

While Croley is describing his vision for an open federal government, the same principle applies, perhaps even more appropriately, to local government. With everything more centralized and smaller-scale, maintaining a transparent system faces fewer challenges than anything on a state or national level.

Take the example of the special ballot measure that allowed Bell Council members to eliminate their salary caps. It’s undeniable that the public was left in the dark. Instead, though the use of town hall meetings and online outreach, changes to city legislature and policy should have been posted and discussed before a final vote went through.

In his post, Croley stated that federal agencies should adopt the attitude of “[telling] you before you ask” over “we’ll tell you if you ask.” This idea will certainly be at the center of a successful transparency movement.

Right now, local officials have an invaluable opportunity to be proactive instead of passive. A relevant solution to the inconsistency of the Public Records Act, for example, might be to establish a database where documents are uploaded and made public for future reference as they are requested. This system would create easy access to the most pertinent records while slowly establishing a comprehensive, accessible database free from red tape.

Get involved

While it is the responsibility of government to operate transparently and with integrity, the impact of citizen engagement should not be understated. Within weeks after the Bell scandal broke, citizens banded together and effectively forced the resignation of its corrupt city officials.

But it shouldn’t take a looming scandal to start an accountability movement.

Citizen engagement has great potential to effect change, and for most people, local government might just be the most accessible place to take action.

One model example of a transparency movement is Illinois’ Local Transparency Project, which combines the expertise of the Illinois Policy Institute with local leaders fighting government opacity. The Local Transparency Project is an encouraging example of a successful grassroots effort and a great resource for citizen activists looking to organize and mobilize.

In addition, the Sunlight Foundation offers fantastic resources and a strong community for transparency advocates. A solid first step would be to join the Public=Online campaign as well as the Citizens for Open Government group. Sunlight is also producing a guide on how to do state level organizing and advocacy around transparency. Bring your community and concerns to the conversation.

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Local government operates closest to the people, but it rarely receives the same attention enjoyed by the state or federal levels.

The Bell scandal proves, however, that though City Councils will never enjoy the celebrity of White House officials or pass billion-dollar legislation, corruption at home can still bear enormous consequences.

If we implement permanent transparency solutions at a local level, we’ll be on our way to a truly open government.

A downloadable chart of Bell City official salaries can be found here [bellcityclerk website pdf]

A huge thank you to the Los Angeles Times and its reporters for breaking the Bell story and shedding much needed light on local governance in California.

This week I have highlights from California, Hawaii, Delaware, Idaho, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico.

California Progress Report has a post about two new bills that would increase public access to campaign finance reports and lobbying records.  They are being introduced by freshmen Assemblymember Alyson Huber, " AB 1181 would require all state candidate committees, ballot measure committees and slate mail organizations to file contributors online with the Secretary of State’s office."  Apparently there is already a free online form for filing campaign donations but they are not required to file that way so they don't.  Hmmm sounds familiar.  The other bill "AB 1274 would require the California Secretary of State to link reported lobbying activities to specific legislation."  I hope these bills pass because they would make California more transparent and the elected officials there more accountable. In Hawaii, ILind.net has a post about lobbying disclosure. The State of Hawaii requires lobbyist to file expenditure report every two months and January and February were due this week.  ILind observes that McDonalds Corporation, despite having an annual legislative reception, did not disclose the costs associated with it.  He goes on to discuss that this could be an ommission on McDonalds side or that the requirements for disclosing need to become more stringent.  Either way Hawaii needs to consider stronger enforcement procedures for lobbying disclosure. Delaware Watch blogs about his experience meeting with Gov. Jack Markell, who went to meet bloggers at a local Panera Café. I think it is fantastic that Gov. Markell takes time to meet with bloggers and answer questions in an informal way.  I hope this is a consistent event in all parts of the state. Idaho’s Eye on Boise reports about the unanimous vote by the state senate to expand sunshine law and add the personal financial disclosure requirements.  This bill is now onto the house, hopefully it will pass with as much support. New York’s Fighting 29th has a post about Rep. Eric Massa’s decision to fight Time-Warner Cable’s broadband cap. This despite Time-Warner being a major donor.  I like this post because it is a good example of why making campaign donations available in a timely manner can build trust with elected officials.  Rep. Massa's decision to not support Time Warner's policy even though they are a major donor means that his constituents don't see a conflict of interest and can trust him. Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Foundation has a post about PA house republican leader Sam Smith’s 12 point government reform plan.  It is a decent list of reforms that should be done to make sure elected officials are being transparent and accountable.  I look forward to see how these reforms go through the legislature. New Mexico’s Independent reports that they will soon have an online, searchable database of state government contracts, but only ones worth more than $20,000.

Earlier this week, Alexander Muir at SocialGovernment.com wrote an interesting post about social media in the states; how they are using new media to interact with citizens and what are some of the best programs. Much like the federal government, he found that the states can and should be doing so much more.

Muir found that states were starting to use maps to inform their residents about traffic and other similar issues. He gives Maryland “extra credit” for the Old Line State’s interactive map displaying environmental initiatives having to do with the Chesapeake Bay. He notes that many states should do more with safety alerts. Currently, Amber Alerts are the most used new media app. He suggests a tornado watch system would be appropriate use of new media.

With the federal Recovery.gov up and running, many states are building their own version. He sites Illinois’ site as a “great start,” but added we’ll have to take a “wait and see” approach to see how transparent and useful these sites end up. And I would add we must take approach the states much like we are the feds by prodding and demanding that they are as open as possible.

States are starting to experiment with Twitter, but few are fully realizing its potential. He sites California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as an exception, who has set up a Twitter group on Buzzable to discuss what’s going on with the state government. He adds that states should embrace widgets much more, with Virginia doing the most with ones on wine, traffic and emergency notices. He also credits Virginia for setting up a YouTube channel, podcasts and a flushed out stimulus site.

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 Oklahoma, Virginia, Maine, and California. In Oklahoma, the McCarville Report Online posts about State Senator Kenneth Corn’s amendment to ban lobbyists from being hired by state agencies.  His amendment was successfully added a bill that would ban state funds being used to pay for lobbying.

Virginia’s Tertium Quids writes about how the state bill that would create a state spending online database has been approved by the State House Science and Technology Committee only to be moved to the Appropriations Committee in order to assess its financial impact.  The financial impact on transparent state finances this will be a hard one to figure out.

JonB at Turn Maine Blue has a post about the Web site Maine set up to monitor what it spends from the stimulus.  JonB asks people to take a critical look at the site and give feedback on its user experience.   Good for Maine for taking the first step and setting up a space to disclose where the stimulus money is going.  This is definitely a step in the right direction.  Mainers should head to it and give some good feedback on how the site can be improved.

In California, the Liberal OC has a post about State Rep. Jose Solorio being lobbyied on Facebook.  Rep. Solorio updated his status saying he was reviewing the budget and people commented on his wall and status with feed back.  A pretty interesting way to lobby a lawmaker.