• This week, a comprehensive overhaul of the Georgia’s open government laws unanimously passed the Senate. House Bill 397 will now go back to the House so members can agree on changes made by the Senate. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, one of the bill's backers, maintains that it “makes great strides towards increasing transparency in Georgia.” Hollie G. Manheimer, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation, points out, “We are optimistic that HB 397 will pass in its current form, and that the attorney general will begin as soon as possible to address an increased number of open government violations. Stronger open government laws mean greater transparency for Georgia citizens.” For the whole story, see Kathleen Baydala Joyner’s post on ATLAW.
• California recently received a D-minus for government transparency. According to John Diaz, this low grade is mostly due to the state lacking a “checkbook” website that displays financial information online. Diaz maintains, “California, home of so much brilliance and innovation, should be ashamed that Texas and Kentucky lead the nation in using the tools of technology to make their government spending more transparent to their citizens. Even worse is that 35 other states scored higher than California in a recent analysis by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Perhaps most humiliating of all is that the technology that could have put California in the top tier in 2012 is not expected to be up and running until … 2017.” For his entire take, see his post on SF Gate.
• In Kentucky, a bill increasing secrecy at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services died in a Senate committee only to be revived minutes later in the House of Representatives. Critics of the measure worry the bill will “sharply curtail public access to details of child-abuse deaths and serious injuries, were outraged, saying the bill gives the cabinet more power to withhold information.” David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Press Association opposes the bill. Calling it a “secrecy bill.” Media attorney Jon Fleischaker testified the Senate committee about concerns over the lack of transparency the bill has for cabinet oversight, even though supporters were pushing it as a transparency bill. For the entire story, see Mike Farell’s post on the Kentucky Open Government Blog.
• According to a report by the State Integrity Investigation, Virginia has been ranked the fourth worst state regarding open government and anti-corruption laws and practices. The state earned a failing score of 55 and performed better than only Wyoming, South Dakota and Georgia. In his blog, Virginia  Senator Chap Petersen called the report “an example of the lamest, most superficial analysis.” For more information, see Nicole Trifone’s post on Fairfax City Patch.

With Super Tuesday quickly approaching, we decided to take a look at what local bloggers in Super Tuesday states are saying about how super PACs have been shaping their respective political landscapes.

• Valerie Joyner of the Blue Ridge Review blog took a look into campaign contributions of Virginia candidate for Blue Ridge Supervisor, Janet Clarke. Joyner alleges that Clarke has gotten many contributions from special interests. According to official reports, Janet Clarke has raised over $91,000.  Joyner maintains, “These numbers are in some cases double or triple the dollars raised by other candidates for Loudoun County Supervisor positions.” Joyner argues that Clarke should clear up questions about the origins of the donations. For instance, Clarke received donations from companies that have projects and business coming before the Board.  Furthermore, Joyner has concerns about contributions from PACs  and others with developer interests coming before the Board, such as donations from a company that has connections to “big box” stores. Joyner points out, “The question here is, because of these donations to her campaign, will Janet Clarke recluse herself if and when a contributor’s issue comes before the Board?”
• The blog Real Loudon raises questions about the campaign contributions of Loudon County supervisor Geary Higgins. The blog points out that Higgins was one of several  recipients of a “remarkable flood of developer cash that flowed into Loudoun GOP coffers during this election cycle.” Using information compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project , the blog determined that Higgins’s largest source of cash out of the $126,276 he raked in was the $10,200 donated to his campaign by a PAC called “Citizens for Virginia’s Future.” The blog post maintains, “Perhaps needless to say, by the strangest of coincidences all of the 22 of the “citizens” who make up this group seem to be from the real estate and development industry.”
• The Alaska Federation of Natives formed the super PAC “Alaskans Standing Together” to  use money from Native corporations to support Senator Lisa Murkowski’s write-in campaign. According to Shripathi Kamath,  “Murkowski was a known commodity, supporting federal entitlements for Native Alaskans as well as big-oil interests.” While Kamath is happy to see Alaska Natives have power in national politics, she worries about the influence special interests might have on the political process.  She writes, “The elephant in the room was the super PAC money being spent on advertising that overwhelmed anything seen before.”  For her take, she Kamath's post on Director's Cut. 
• Melaleuca Inc, a company founded by Idaho Falls billionaire Frank VanderSloot , donated $1 million to Mitt Romney’s super PAC “Restore Our Future.” According to Dan Popkey, VanderSloot has been a longtime support of Romney’s: "VanderSloot is a national finance co-chairman for Romney and has been a backer of mostly Republican causes and candidates. He was a key supporter of the 2011 'Students Come First' laws authored by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna." For the entire story, see Popkey's post on the Idaho Statesmen.

Today I want to give a shout out Bacon's Rebellion.

The blog is dedicated to covering Virginia; especially infastructure, transportation and taxes.  Bacon's Rebellion has a few contributors but the person I have highlighted the most is James Bacon.

I like the post about a fellow transparency advocate retiring.  The post about the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority lobbying for more state money with state money; is a great example of how some potential conflicts of interest can fall through the cracks.  Even if using public money to lobby for more public money isn't illegal it should be questioned and blogs are the perfect place for that kind of digging.

Bacon's Rebellion's posts are always thoughtful and focused on how best to deal with the nuts and bolts that make up Virginia.

The Virginia State Board of Elections has announced that it will have live election results available in real time using XML (Yes the announcement is in a PDF, one step at a time.)  You can see the results here.

Great job Virginia for using XML and embracing real time election results.

(h/t Luigi Montanez)

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 Virginia, Maryland, Delaware

In Virgina, Shaun Kenney writes about Virginia part time legislature and the conflict of interest that grows from it.  Virginia has a part time legislature which creates a lot of examples of conflict of interest, for instance, "Delegate Jennifer McClellan continues to hold her seat despite her professional employment as a lobbyist for Verizon."  This post was in response to Waldo Jaquith's post about  a Virginia legislator who basically wrote himself an earmark- "Hamilton had Old Dominion University hire him as a consultant, using funding he’d allocate from the state budget."  Jaquith suggests that Virginia should make their state legislature full time and pay their lawmakers more.  Shaun counters that more time and money won't make lawmakers more ethical, so he suggests a shorter legislative session with no pay.  For the several state legislatures that are part time (Montana's meets once every 2 years for example) this is an important discussion.  The question of  what kind of lawmaker you want to represent you is one of the defining debates of any republic. 

In Maryland, Annapolis Politics has a post about analyzing campaign finance reports.  "You don't really need intelligence--what you really need is time.and a cynical attitude."  It's an excellent summary of what to look at:  Key notes of information: amount of donation, type of donor, location of donor, amount of money raised, and ending cash on hand.

Kilroys Delaware has a post about school district transparency new legislation would require school districts to post, on their Web site, a check register of every check they write and update the register every three months.  This is a great first step for school district budget transparency.  Even though three months is pretty decent disclosure time schedule, they should really aim for real time disclosure, since checks are all done electronically real time shouldn't be a technical problem.

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.

Loudoun County in Virginia just launched a new wiki to collect community news and information. Loudounpedia is run by the Loudoun county library system and has sections for local government information, blogs, job board, recreation and other community related activities.

The government section now has all information regarding the election including a Google map of polling places. This is an excellent resource for the community and the choice of a wiki allows people to edit it with their own knowledge making it a resource that is owned by the community.

h/t to the Municipalist