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.

• According to Galloway Township News, New Jersey’s Galloway Township has failed to release an agenda for the townships meeting their meeting on Tuesday, November 21, 2011. GallowayTwpNews.com emailed township manager Steven Bonanni on Sunday to remind him the agenda had not been released. Bonanni said he was on vacation and that he would follow up with the agenda on Monday morning. The agenda has still not been released. Galloway Township News maintains that Galloway Township has broken the state’s open meeting law that requires the public bodies provide the public with adequate advance notice of all its meetings. For the whole story, check out Harry B. Scheeler’s post at Galloway Township News.
• During a campaign speech in 2010, Nevada’s Nye County Treasurer Mike Maher promised citizens he would provide “accurate, timely, financial information so you can be capable of being informed and capable of either supporting a solution to a financial action by your elected officials prior to expenditures being made instead of after an expenditure is being made.” Maher is eight months behind in filing the monthly treasurer's reports,the verge of having a complaint filed against him in District Court. Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley  maintained that if monthly treasurer reports through Oct. 31 were not produced by the Dec. 6 county commission meeting, she will put an item on the agenda Dec. 20 to file a complaint against Maher. To read more, check out Mark Waite’s post on the Pahrump Valley Times.
• An effort to create an online forum that would allow Oregon City’s 10 urban renewal commissioners to publicly discuss agency business came to a quick halt after city officials raised concerns about hosting what amounts to a meeting that never ends. The recommendation from Commissioner Phil Yateswas intended to allow the urban renewal board to share opinions during the lull between its twice-a-month meetings. Commissioners often run short on time at meetings and that’s led at least one member to question the agency’s effectiveness. The process would be transparent and the public could listen in on the conversation any time, Yates said. For more information, check out Steve Mayes’ post at Oregon Live.
• A Washington State Court of Appeals recently held that prison inmate Robert Johnson’s public records lawsuit against the State of Washington Department of Corrections was time-barred, and therefore dismissed. In August 2006, Johnson sent a public records request to the Department of Correction’s Public Disclosure Unit requesting information about the Extended Family Visitation policy revision. The DOC told Johnson that the only responsive record was one email documenting approval of the policy change, which Johnson received in early September, 2006. Over the next few months, Johnson submitted a duplicate public records request to various Department of Corrections Public Disclosure officers seeking the same information identified in his original request. After a series of additional requests, the Department sent Johnson a final letter on August 27, 2007, noting that Johnson had already received the sole responsive document, and that his request was considered closed. Over two years later, another requestor, Melinda Carter, sought the same information as Johnson. Carter was provided with nearly substantially more information than Johnson, over 300 pages of documents in response to her request. In December 2009, Johnson filed a Public Records Act (“PRA”) action to compel production of records that the Department of Corrections ostensibly withheld. Johnson contended that the Department of Corrections violated the PRA by only disclosing a single email when he had requested all records pertaining to the Extended Family Visitation policy change. He cited Carter’s request and DOC’s 300-page response as evidence to support his claim. The superior court denied Johnson’s motion and dismissed his PRA action. The Court of Appeals affirmed, finding Johnson’s arguments were time-barred. See Alicia Feichtmeir’s post on the Local Open Government Blog, for more information.

Across the country people are going to government meetings asking for better government.  In Oregon the Attorney General is asking people for their input and Darrell Flood answered the call to make sure the elected officials in Oregon know that government information needs to be online and updated in real time.  He has graciously shared his experience with us.

My name is Darrell Flood. I used to be a cop and after I was unable to do that I couldn't suppress the urge to help people, so I became an activist. I have testified before government agencies for the past three and a half years - mostly at the local level, once at the state regarding ethics and most recently at the Attorney General's Government Transparency Initiative Meeting. So, I am no expert on providing testimony, but I don't consider myself a novice either.

The Transparency Initiative is a series of meetings across the state to get input from the public on Oregon’s transparency laws. I signed up to be at the one in Portland, Oregon. In preparation for the meeting I spent some time reviewing the statutes, the public records and the meetings manual from the State of Oregon. For my testimony, I had written a nice long story about things I had encountered and then showed it to my wife. She said the following “It is too long and you only have 2 minutes. They are not there for your story telling, you have to be quick.” So, after some rewrites I had my testimony.

We showed up to the meeting about a half hour before it started and signed in--also signing the testimony sheet. When the meeting started the moderator introduced the panel, which included Attorney General John Kroger and his new Government Transparency Counsel Michael Kron. After we heard the panel, Kroger stated that he was holding these meetings to get ideas from the public on how transparency should look. The moderator advised us of the rules: We would be given a whole 2 minutes before we would be cut off. Isn't it amazing that when the government asks for our opinion we only get 2 minutes? Boy was I glad mine was only 2 minutes.

So, I got in line. As I was waiting for my turn I thought about what Ellen Miller must have felt like waiting to give her testimony at the Senate. I asked myself, “Is someone else going to say what I say first and then I will look like a copy cat? Am I going to get my turn? My back hurts from standing in this line.” At the same time, I was listening to the testimony. I noticed that just as people were getting into their stride the moderator would interrupt and tell them they only had 30 seconds left. I hate that. It seems to be the ploy of most government panels to rush the speaker and make them feel as though you are taking up their time. I’m next. How do I counter this ploy? So, I step up to the mic and I inform the moderator that I have timed my testimony and it is 2 minutes. Then I began.

“My name is Darrell Flood.

I live in Lafayette, Oregon.

I have had to become an activist for access. The attorney general's manual refers to me as a “busy body” looking to embarrass local officials. I am looking for facts. But as long as the stereotype is quoted by your office, citizens cannot be taken seriously.”

The audience laughed, but what happened next surprised us all. “Where does it say that in the manual?” the Oregon State Attorney General John Kroger asked.

“Right up front,” I replied.

He said, “Come show it to me.” So, I approached the panel and took his book and opened it to the first page and pointed to the paragraph I referred to. Which he began to read aloud,

“Generally, the identity, motive and need of the person requesting access to public records are irrelevant. Interested persons, news media representatives, business people seeking access for personal gain, busybodies on fishing expeditions, persons seeking to embarrass government agencies, and scientific researchers all stand on an equal footing.”

Kroger explained that the statement was intended to place all people requesting public records on even ground. I said that may be true, but you are continuing a stereotype by having that in the manual. He then turned to Michael Kron and stated that maybe something could be done about that and Michael agreed.

Wow! Did that feel great. It showed me that given a chance anybody can make a change even if it begins with something small. Then the Moderator advised me that I still had my time. So I thanked him and finished my testimony. You can read the full version below.

The rest of the meeting went well as many people spoke of issues regarding public documents and public meetings. I heard another speaker state that he agreed with this “busybody” that all documents should be online.

So, it begins with a small seed in the minds of the concerned public that were attending the Oregon Transparency Hearings. The job has only begun. In the fall 2010 the Oregon State Attorney General John Kroger plans to put forth legislation to make Oregon more transparent. I will be there to make sure it is what the citizens want. Our goal is they implement nothing less then what Public = Online demands. Nothing less is acceptable.

Your “Busybody” from Oregon,

Darrell Flood

Testimony:

My name is Darrell Flood. I live in Lafayette, Oregon.

I have had to become an activist for access. The attorney general's manual refers to me as a busy body looking to embarrass local officials. I am looking for facts. But as long as the stereotype is quoted by your office, citizens cannot be taken seriously. The state advises that government may pass on reasonable charges for access to documents, but no one can agree what reasonable is.

The City of West Linn charges $9.00 a page.

The City of Portland charges 25 cents a page. But, the Portland Fire Bureau charges $2.00 a page.

The City of Lafayette charges $10.00 for every half hour and 25 cents a page.

Lafayette charges $5.00 for each recorded cd. But, the City of Sheridan charges $20.00.

The State Legislative Administration office charges more that $30.00 an hour just to find out if they even have a document.

Reasonable is relative. I already pay for the computer, the person and the documents. So, why do I have to pay to get them? There is no standard.  I want legislation to determine what reasonable is.

My ideal would be that governments would create a web access site and all documents would live there. For $120.00 a year, each city could do this and it would hold more information than they could ever provide.

Public means all documents, on line, free of charge, to everyone.

I believe, if access were available, your office would have to hire a whole set of staff just to deal with the corruption that would be found. And that appears to be a reason citizens seem to be blocked from getting the information they want. People want the information they pay for and the people who are paid to represent them need to provide it.

Thank you for your time.

Whew!  It has been a busy week but don't worry Local Sunlight fans I haven't forgot who I am thankful for. 

Pennsylvania’s Above Average Jane, Oregon’s Tom Cusak,  South Carolina’s SC6 and Rhode Island's Twelfth!

I have highlighted Above Average Jane a few times.  I like her summaries of what is going on in the Pennsylvania State House and how she has looked into FEC data.  This week she had a post highlighting an email about PA health centers that are getting stimulus funds.  I think this is a great way to share information for a busy blogger.  Sometimes all you need to do is repost because sometimes information shouldn't stay in the inbox.

Tom Cusak goes above and beyond the call when it comes to blogging about Oregon.  He has three blogs and I have highlighted them all:  Oregon Earmarks Blog, Oregon Housing Blog, and Open Government News and Issues, Oregon.  Tom’s perspective is interesting to me because he used to work for Department of Housing and Urban Development.  It is interesting to see what a former bureaucrat cares about post retirement.  He has done his own research into earmarks and spending as well as discuss open government issues in the state of Oregon.  He is a great asset to Oregon's blogosphere.

South Carolina's SC6 is written by Mike Reino and is a great blog to read for a wide variety of political information; local and federal.  He did a fascinating investigation into campaign donors.  One of my favorite posts of his,  is this post on a seemingly frivolous bill that was considered in the House.  I really enjoy posts about people looking at bills being introduced and finding interesting things or ridiculous legislation.

Rhode Island’s Twelfth is a great hyper  local blog by a woman named Eileen Spillane.  Dedicated to all things in Rhode Island Senate's 12th district she covers a wide variety of subjects.  I like when she covers local transparency issues like open records issues and local Web site reviews.  It is always nice to read hyper local blogs because it becomes less about pure politics but about people and how politics effects communities.

The creation of jobs is a main part of the stimulus legislation. Seeing how many jobs were created and maintained in local areas is key to evaluating the effectiveness of funds and the taxpayer investment. Tom Cusak from Oregon Housing blog, decided to see what his local community looked like after the funds were released and since the Recovery Web site doesn't let you find the answers in one easy place, he created his own excel spreadsheet with the information.

By now most have seen the headlines saying that Recovery Act funding recipients (Grants, Loans, or Contracts) have reported creating or saving 640,000+ jobs by September 30th. Various news accounts have reported some state or recipient specific jobs data, but getting a comprehensive picture by locality, recipient, or by program has not been possible. That just changed. Using data from Recovery.gov I created an Excel workbook that allows users to explore down to the zip code level, 156,000 recipient records that provide the details that add up to the 640,000+ jobs, or the 1,900+ Oregon records that contain the details that add up to 9,600 Recovery Act funded jobs. This Excel 2007 workbook contains ALL Recovery jobs (and spending) data for the US, for Oregon, and for HUD and includes jobs as reported by recipients of Recovery Act grants, AND loans, AND contracts. Using filters or pivot tables, the workbook will help answer many questions down to the zip code, city, and state level (inexplicably, a county level data field is not included in the Recovery Act funding data). 1. How much money are recipients reporting they have spent? 2. How many and what specific kinds of jobs are recipients reporting they have created? 3. How many jobs are being created by HUD Recovery Act funding, and by which programs?

Read the rest here.

Loaded Orygun has been working on getting bloggers access to city meetings, designated as closed sessions that only journalists are allowed to attend.  The city drafted a new policy for local media regarding attending sessions. "The policy stems from a Lake Oswego incident in July 2008 when Mark Bunster, author of political blog Loaded Orygun, unsuccessfully insisted he was a member of the media who could attend a closed session about the city's $110 million sewer interceptor project. Oregon law allows media representatives to attend but not report directly from executive sessions."

Here is his take on the proposed policy:

Briefly, I wanted to follow up on yesterday's story about the new policy drafted to handle media requests for attendance at local government Executive Sessions, by linking up to The O's story on the matter published this morning. I'm quoted a couple of times, and while the quotes are generally accurate, the tone seems a touch petulant, like I'm sour-grapesing my way through the issue because I had been refused. I think under a reasonable definition of "media" Loaded Orygun should qualify, but that's not really the point, and if a system was proposed that ended up excluding me for some justifiable reason, I don't think I'd have an objection.

But the problem is that not only would this policy tend to shut someone like me out, it would also restrict bloggers far more professional, regular and talented than myself. What if David Niewert, aka Orcinus, had only his webpage (and Crooks and Liars, where he is managing editor but I'm not aware of any original journalism they do there) and his books as his credential? Does Orcinus have a letterhead, or editors for that matter? Before TalkingPointsMemo became a full-fledged journo outfit, it was simply Josh Marshall, freelance journalist. Big no for him if he wanted to attend an Exec? Or how about Marcy Wheeler, who when known in her writings simply as "emptywheel," was the prime journalistic mover on L'affair du Plame? As someone without a real-name byline on her posts, she'd be viewed with skepticism as well.

And as I noted yesterday, the entire principle of a preemptively restrictive eligibility for attending sessions is both upside down relative to the point of the law and the need for it (ie, that ALL public meetings should be open, and if there are exceptions they should be tightly regulated and as open as possible), and to the known problem the lack of a detailed policy has caused in Oregon (which to my knowledge is none). It's a solution in search of a problem.

This is a good first step but there is room for improvement.  With the decreasing numbers of local journalists it is important to let people who want to cover their local communities have access to these kinds of meetings.

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, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, and Hawaii.

In Pennsylvania, Above Average Jane has been looking into some missing reports on the FEC.gov site. It seems some reports that were available through electronic filing are now only available through paper filing.

Rhode Island’s 12^th has a great list of questions to ask about your local government Web site. These are great ways to access how good a town Web site also check out Sunshine Reviews Ten Point Check list.

In Utah, The World According to Me has tips on how to effectively contact your elected official.  I think these are excellent tips that would help constituents and legislators communicate better. 

In Hawaii, iLind.net has a fascinating post on the Hawaii Freedom of Information movement and how Hawaii is trying to change the way government responds to request. He also tells a moving story about visiting his dad.

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.

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.

Government Techonology reports on New York City's Open Source Solutions Lab at the City University of New York (CUNY).  The project is a collaboration with Intel and Red Hat to test open sources solutions for government information techonology. The goal of the project is to help provide New York City's public sector with the most cost-effective and flexlible technology for government needs. 

New York City deserves some praise for creating a resource to help move government to better information technology solutions.  This program, along with the Open Source Lab in Oregon, is helping government take steps to actually create software that meets the needs of agencies and can also create better resources for citizens.