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.

Joining us from Montana as our special guest blogger is Montana Cowgirl. You can read more of her blog on Montana Cowgirl . This post puts in perspective, the state's decision to fight the U.S. Supreme court's ruling on Citizens United.

All eyes are on the Big Sky state after Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock’s huge win against shadow political groups. These groups tried to overturn Montana’s centuries-old ban on corporate spending in elections.  Bullock beat them down.

A few years ago the U.S. Supreme Court gave it’s full seal of approval to corporate influence in elections, in the infamous Citizens United Case. Since then, Montana has been the only state in America with the backbone to wage a war to defend it’s own state laws prohibiting such corporate spending.   Our laws date back to 1912, and were passed in response to Copper Kings who tried to buy the entire state government with bribes.

The ruling by the Montana Supreme Court in Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. State of Montana is a ray of hope for American election law.  During the 2010 elections, giant industries descended on Montana and spent huge sums of unregulated, undisclosed money, as much as $6 million, to elect Republican legislative candidates. The result was the most lopsided election in Montana history.

A big shout-out to Chief Justice Mike McGrath, who found an artful way to weave an opinion out of delicate cloth, upholding Montana’s ban on corporate money passed by voters in 1912, by finding meaningful distinctions between Montana’s law and the federal law that was held unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in Citizens.

Montana's Supreme Court ruled that Citizens United does not apply to state elections.   The Citizens United court went on and on about how difficult it is for corporations to use political action committees (PACs) to participate in the political system. Here in Montana, that's just not the case.  Anyone can form a state PAC by filling out a simple form that only takes a minute or two to fill out.

As Montana Supreme Court Judge Jim Nelson wrote in dissent, “the notion that corporations are disadvantaged in the political realm is unbelievable. Indeed, it has astounded most Americans. The truth is that corporations wield enormous power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins: the transition is seamless and overlapping.”

Citizens United will still apply to federal elections in Montana.  So, candidates for the U.S. House and Senate in Montana will still face millions of dollars in corporate-funded special interest attack ads.

Bullock should be proud of having argued a landmark decision that will be remembered in Montana for many decades. He is running for Governor in Montana on the Democratic ticket.

Montana Commissioner of Political Practices

In our still on going campaign to tell our governors to support open government, we stand beside citizen activists who want to see an end to the roll back of transparency laws. We are dedicated to equipping the public with tools with-which to demand for accountability, and have developed various resources including open government.org,  an open-source public resource website for government transparency and civic engagement at the state and local levels. So far, we have covered California, Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, and Wisconsin with Minnesota to be launched soon.  Montana's recent strike at open government reaffirms the need to continuously-- as Pete Weitzel, former director of the Coalition of journalists for Open Government puts it-- "turn a public official's 'right to no' into your 'right to know'."

• Last week, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed a bill that would have created a website with the state’s budget and spending details. Proposed by Rep.Tom Burnett, HB 444 would have enabled the public to search, retrieve and download information about the state finances including state budgets, revenues, appropriations and expenditures. But Gov. Schweitzer thwarted the bill with claims that at an estimated $400,000, the website would be too costly and did not have an “ investment on return for the tax payer”. Michael Noyes writes more on Montana Watchdog.

• The city of New York unveiled a “Road Map for the Digital City” -- a project that will feature APIs for city data and plans that will change the way government information is presented online. Open government entrepreneurs are optimistic that the Road Map will give the city’s startups an advantage through integrating media and technology while widening access to wifi in public parks. Anil Dash, who is confident the web is a public space, adds that this would be a valuable opportunity for citizens to be engaged through technology. Read more on Anil Dash.

• Last week, we highlighted a post that mentioned Oregon's move to strengthen their public records. Now, A.J. O’Connell is writing that the opposition from some government agencies including the League of Oregon Cities, that  has hired lobbyists to try and prevent the bill from becoming law, may cause a problem. His attempt at reaching out to the state’s Attorney General to show that Creswell, his city, is not aligned with the lobbyists intentions, have been swept under the rug. What is he hoping to do next to save open government in Portland? Find out on A.J. for Creswell.

• A bill that would limit the reach of public records in Raleigh, NC was proposed on the grounds that productivity of government workers searching for, organizing and providing information requested by the public, will be reduced. Daniel O’Leary is proposing an easier way: turning the documents into electronic format! Through LinDoc which creates electronic e-forms, that connect directly to a universal repository, the public and reporters are able to search and find public records for themselves, eliminating the need for government staffers to do this task. In cases where some records have to be paid for, O’Leary recommends using WebLink which is already being used by other states. Read more of his compelling argument on Capture Expert blog.

 

The health care debate is raging on, and a big part of it includes having versions of the bill available so people can Read the Bill.   The great thing about having the bill online for everyone to see is that citizens will start looking for the  substantive details of the legislation themselves and add value to the debate.

Citizens of Montana, the home state of Sen. Max Baucus, have been busy reading their senator's proposed bill.  Left in the West has been looking into the bill and comparing what people are saying about what the bill contains.

Frankly, the more I look at this thing, the more it's obvious we need both a public option and to open the health insurance exchange to everyone. If you want a better analysis of this bill, got to Jay Rockefeller, who says this is what's wrong with the bill:

• CHIP is put into the exchange.

• No public option.

• Already existing policies from big companies not affected by new regulations. You read that right! Almost half of the nation's consumers will have no protection from pre-existing condition clauses or lifetime caps!

• Affordability.

See, that's the thing. If you have crappy, employer-provided insurance, you have to keep it. As Baucus' bill is written now, you can't ditch it for something better in the exchange. That's unacceptable.

Anyway. Still reading this thing.

Also in Utah, The Side Track has taken up the task of answering state Sen. Chris Buttars' questions about the health care bill by actually reading the bill.  See their answers here, here, here, and here.

For those of you who missed it, Sen. Chris Buttars has questions. ...

I'll be honest, I thought we were taking on quite a challenge. 1,000 plus pages really isn't that large for a piece of legislation (Bush's final budget was over 1,300 pages long... and speaking of which, did Buttars print that one out on the tax payer's dime too?), but it is a challenge for several bloggers with many other obligations. We assumed.

We assumed wrong. In fact, it's been embarrassingly easy, and a bit of a bore, as research challenges go.

No matter where you stand, the debate is always better when you take actual details from the bill, instead of hearsay.  This is why every bill should be available for 72 hours. Call your congressman today and ask them to sign the discharge petition for H. Res 554.

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 Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, and Nevada.

In Illinois, Bill Baar’s West Side writes about a blogger call with State Rep. Julie Hamos regarding a petition she released to put a cap on campaign contributions.  Rep. Hamos answered questions about why legislation to restrict contributions is necessary and how much political support this reform has. In Minnesota, Residual Forces posts about a new blog Hennepin County Taxpayer Watchdog which is run by the  County Board of Commissioners.  The blog was set up to inform taxpayers about how their money is being spent.  The latest post is about how the county installed solar panels onto one of its buildings and describes why this is a good expenditure and how it saved the taxpayers money. In Montana, Intelligent Discontent has a post about requiring school districts to post their full budgets online.  An article in Education Week (registration required) points to how the current way of just releasing a summary can be misleading but releasing all the information allows people to judge for themselves. In Nevada, Nor’Town has another post looking into campaign finance information.  I really like these posts, that go into who is giving money to who and what interests are being represented.  This is the type of work that needs to be done, as soon as possible, so voters can see what interests are trying to influence their elected officials.  Which is the exact reasion we have been trying to get S 482 passed, the bill would require the Senate to file their campaign finance reports electronically, so we can get the information faster.  Call your Senator today and ask them why they don't support more transparency.

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 Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Texas.

In Montana, MTPolitics.net highlights the new Montana Election wiki.  The wiki aims to be an all stop shop for all of Montana’s elections happenings.  It includes elections from the county to the federal level.

In Nevada, Blue Sage Views talks about how much money in earmarks Rep. Dean Heller has gotten in the last two years.  There is definitely some work in EarmarkWatch.org for Rep. Dean Heller according to his $32 million earmarks.

In Oregon, Loaded Orygun blogs about his experience trying to cover an Executive Session of the Lake Oswego Council.  Executive Sessions are closed except to journalists.  There are no clear rules about whether citizen journalists are allowed to be credited and so TorridJoe was asked to leave.  This incident is requiring Lake Oswego to adopt a policy regarding new media journalists.  Stayed tuned to Loaded Orygun for more info.  They should check out the Open House Project's section on Citizen Journalism Access.

In Texas, blogHouston points to Texas Watchdog posting of Houston City Council’s financial disclosures on their website.  Since this information is not available online now this watch dog group is doing it for them.  How nice.