To highlight the anniversary of January 2010's Citizens United decision, all of this month's weekly roundups will  take a look at what local bloggers across the country are saying about the ruling. First up, bloggers who represent the primary states:

• Iowa Senator Tom Harkin is pushing for a bill that would limit the amount of money corporations can contribute to a political campaign. He maintains that “This bill that we are pushing would amend the Constitution to basically say that money is not speech.” While she sees the proposed bill  as a step in the right direction, Lydia Waddington of the Iowa Independent has her doubts,pointing out that “in a Congress that has been loathe to pass meaningful legislation, the idea that any joint resolution to amend the Constitution could gain enough bipartisan traction to reach the two-thirds majority it needs in both chambers is, to be blunt, laughable — something Harkin and the bill’s other 14 supporters openly recognize.” Harkin agrees that the bill’s passing is unlikely, but maintains, “I think as we go into the campaign next year, and as people see more and more of these distorted ads, which the candidates have no control over — you are going to see all of these devastating ads on candidates and where they stand and all of that, paid for by some bogus group. And the Supreme Court has given them a shield so that they don’t even have to say where [the money] comes from.” Marybeth Gardam, Iowa organizer for a grassroots organization Move to Amend feels that the bill falls short, saying, “This [proposal] addresses the ‘money is not speech’ piece of it, but it does not address the ‘corporation is not a person’ piece of it. And as long as they have that right — which they got very illegitimately in the 1880s — they will be able to use that power against ‘we the people.”

• David Shlutz post on MinnPost.com emphasizes the changes Citizens United ruling brings to state and local political campaigns in Minnesota. He maintains that, “Besides making it possible for corporations to make unlimited express advocacy expenditures in races for governor, the other constitutional offices, and the state Legislature, they will be free to do the same for local races such as city council and mayoral races. Citizens United also enable corporate express advocacy in judicial elections. He suggests a number of policy decisions to ensure that laws are being properly followed, for instance, Minnesota could mandate that any corporate expenditure must be disclosed at the time it is made.
• In their continued protests against Citizens United, Occupy Orlando took their message to Florida senator Gary Siplin’s office “to present a formal letter asking for his support to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.” The Occupy Orlando action is being launched in conjunction with the national Move to Amend campaign, that seeks to “end the illegitimate legal doctrines that prevent the American people from governing ourselves.” Move to Amend maintains that the Citizens United ruling granted corporations the same rights as natural persons, “entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government.” For the whole story, read Virginia Chamlee’s post on The American Independent.

• In Iowa, a forthcoming Surpreme Court decision will soon clarify the Citizens United ruling and how it might be interpreted. In September of 2010, Iowa Right to Life filed a complaint in the Southern District of Iowa challenging the constitutionality of Iowa campaign-finance laws maintaining  that Iowa’s new laws–which were enacted in the wake of Citizens United–are still too burdensome for organizations making independent expenditures who are not registered as political action committees. Iowa Right to Life argued that Iowa’s new rules impose PAC-like obligations on all organizations making independent expenditures of more than $750, and that these rules violate the First Amendment.  The State argued that the rules do no such thing, and thus there is no constitutional problem.  Chief Judge Pratt agreed with the State, but concluded that he is “generally without authority to construe or narrow state statutes.” For more information and an update on the forthcoming ruling, see Ryan Koopmans’ post on On Brief.

• 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.

Whether it is a top-down issue or the other way round, we can not help but notice a disconnect between what Florida's Governor -- Rick Scott preaches and what he practices. Earlier this year, one of his top aides avoided using emails, because they create a paper trail. And the mixed messages ranging from designing Florida Has a Right to Know , to imposing fees on public records that were previously free, are not helping.

• A private company that provided e-mail services for Governor Rick Scott’s transitional administration “accidentally” deleted all emails from the Florida governor-elect's office soon after he took office. Peter Schorsch is wondering whether this was a genuine accident considering the governor’s disregard for open government laws. See how he equates it to the ‘dog ate my homework’ situation on SaintPetersblog.

• The city of Laurel in Maryland has amended their background check law on all candidates vying for city council office. After consulting with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the city’s mayor Craig Moe, said the original law was meant to increase transparency to the election process but now feels that conducting a background check could be considered discriminatory. Gordon Basichis notes one plausible aspect of the amendment law; which is the immediate removal from office, of anyone convicted of a crime while in office. Read on at Corra Daily Planet.

• Campaign finance laws in Fulton County, Georgia could soon see some change. A resolution created to stop any corporation, officer, agent or individual making campaign contributions or gifts from seeking county contracts, is under consideration by the county’s Board of Commissioners. Already proposed in Indiana, and found problematic in Colorado, the new resolution seeks to regulate conduct of campaign financing and contributions. Stefan Passantio is screaming “fire” about this “pay-to-play” ordinance so head on over to the Pay to Play Law blog to see why.

• Citizens in New Mexico will now be able to access complaints against police officers under a new ruling by the state’s Supreme Court. Alicia Feichtmeir, an attorney in litigation and dispute resolution shares that information contained in the citizens’ complaints belong to the citizen in question regardless of whether or not the allegations made a true or false. See how she compares this ruling to the Washington’s Public Record’s Act on Local Open Government Blog.

• John Knutsen a Puyallup, Washington Councilmember was awarded a key award by the Washington Coalition for Open Government for opting out of informal discussions that happen outside of the scheduled council meetings. The informal meetings, also known as rolling meetings are used by some councilmembers in groups of two to three to discuss official issues, without the burden of notifying the public. For more on how open government supporters are praising the Councilmember’s action as a transparency effort, see Puyallup NOW.

In the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections there is no race drawing more attention than the Republican primary between Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and former Florida Speaker of the House Marco Rubio. Crist and Rubio are locked in an ideological battle for the soul of the Republican Party. Crist representing the moderate wing and Rubio riding the wave of conversative energy powered by the Tea Parties. This split hasn't stopped either one from raising a lot of money from varying sources. What may be interesting is what interests powered their rise in the Sunshine State and which individuals are currently contributing to both of them. Thanks to TransparencyData.com, we can rapidly determine this.

TransparencyData.com allows rapid searches and download of campaign finance data from both the federal and state levels over the past 20 years. Both Rubio and Crist have a wealth of state-level campaign finance data to examine. Rubio served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000-2008 and Crist served as Florida's Attorney General from 2003-2007 and has occupied the office of governor since 2007.

You can quickly download Rubio's contributions at both the federal and state levels here. Crist's--of which there are a lot more than Rubio--are available to download here. I should note that the most recent campaign hauls by both candidates are not currently available. Take a look at these and do what you will. I'm sure that there is a ton of information to be collected and let me know what's interesting, especially the state-level data.

I pulled together all of the donors that have contributed to both the Crist and Rubio Senate campaigns. You can see them in the table below:

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 Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Texas.

In Alabama, Left in Alabama highlights a scandal about Attorney General Troy King’s apparent conflict of interest.  Apparently King went to a party thrown by a developer and then three months later his office issued a legal opinion that said the developer could get a bingo permit for their upcoming project.  According to the author this isn't the first time King has been entertained by a special interest.  Alabama Power apparently treated King to a few luxury box baseball tickets back in 2006.

Florida Politics is copying a great idea started by Aldon Hynes in Connecticut.  He created a newswire “where the various state agencies, municipalities, state legislators, advocacy organizations, etc., could send their press releases and the like.”  This is a great idea a one stop shop for public relations people to send there info and for bloggers to get it.

In Hawaii, ILind.net has a post about the two special advisories that the State Ethics Commission had.  Apparently there had been complaints filed about legislators receiving free tickets to events from non profits.  The commission advised that taking these gifts would violate state ethics laws.

Kentucky’s The Bridge, uses Party Time to keep track of  what fundraisers Congresspeople are attending.  It is a pretty decent list of where their members of Congress will be.

Pennsylvania’s Keystone Politics has two interesting stories. The first one is a post about how four elected judges in Northampton County have presided over cases that involved a donor to their election campaign. Apparently the decision for what a conflict of interest is, is left to the judges to decided, so they don't have to recuse themselves if a donor appears before them.  This brings up whether the rules should be changed to require judges to recuse themselves if a donor is involved or if you want a favorable outcome you should make some quick campaign donations.

The second story is about former state democratic house leader Bill DeWeese who gave bonuses to his staff, who then donated that amount or close to that amount back to his campaign.

Capitol Annex, in Texas, talks about a bill that would give bloggers the same protection main stream media gets.  This allows bloggers to cover "matters of 'public concern,' such as legislative proceedings, school board meetings, and the actions of state officials" and not be sued for libel.  The author and a few other bloggers successfully testified, in favor of the bill, to the committee and seemed confident he received a fair hearing.