• A New York state judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom against the New York State Senate, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and the New York State Department of Health may proceed. The lawsuit challenges New York’s same sex marriage law. The plaintiffs argue the law was passed as a result of a combination of factors, from Senate meetings that violated New York State Open Meeting Laws to promises of campaign contributions for Republican senators who changed their vote. The suit also cites atypical procedures in the Senate, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s waiving the constitutionally required three-day review period before a legislative vote, lobbyists and the general public being denied access to representatives, and private dinners at the Governor’s mansion. For the full story, read Lauren Rodgers’ post on Ballot News.

We have reached the middle of the month, which means there  isn’t many days left in my 24 Days of Local Sunlight!  So let me get a thankin!

My thanks goes out to Annapolis Politics, Fighting 29th, South Texas Chisme and Triad Watch.

Annapolis Politics written by Brian Gill covers about Annapolis and surrounding areas.  Whether it's live blogging city council meetings or offering budget solutions Annapolis Politics is a great place to find information about the local government. I really liked his work highlighting shady elected official business and one of my favorites posts explaining campaign finance information.

Fighting 29th is a blog that focuses on the activities of its representative Eric Massa.  Written by Rottenchester who also maintains Congressdb, which you can use to compare congressional votes.  One of my favorite posts is the one that Rep. Massa voting against Time Warner even though they are one of his major donors.   Another great series of posts was about the previous occupier of district 29th's seat, former Rep. Kuhl and they were highlighting how difficult it was to find out how much congressional travel to other countries costs.  This blog is a great example of how to really follow your member of Congress.

South Texas Chisme is "a collection south Texas political gossip".  I like reading it because you can find a wide variety of different information not the least of which transparency related.  I have highlighted posts about personal financial disclosures and campaign finance reports.  It is very neat to be able to stop at one blog and see what is going on in a whole region.  I hope people see my local sunlight's that way too.  A snapshot of transparency in the local level.

Triad Watch is keeping an eye out on North Carolina, by doing research and keeping an eye out on what is going on on the local level.  Like this post about  local developers giving free rides to local elected officials to Washington, DC or posting the City of Greensboro's disbursements online to see what government money is working locally.

Maryland’s General Assembly legislative session will be starting up in January, and if you pay attention to anything next year it should be Delegate Saqib Ali’s open government legislation.

The Legislative Voting Sunshine Act, drafted by Del. Saqib Ali (D-Montgomery), would require committee votes to be posted on the General Assembly site, as well as any other recorded votes on amendments and motions related to bills that are taken during committee meetings.

There aren’t many states that put committee votes online and congressional committees aren’t required to put their votes online either.  After a quick  search, the only state I found that does this is Florida and they put the votes up in PDFs.  So Maryland can be a real leader in committee disclosure if this gets passed and they put the votes up in machine readable formats.

This bill would make it easier for citizens to keep delegates accountable because people won't have to head to Annapolis for it.  We at Sunlight will be keeping track of the Legislation Voting Sunshine Act, and hopefully it will become an example for other states and could help enhance our 50 State Project.  This legislation is common sense and should hopefully pass with no resistance.

Know about any up and coming transparency legislation happening in your state?  Let me know in the comments.

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  Missouri, Maryland, Louisiana, Arizona, and Minnesota

In Missouri, The Turner Report has a post about an earmark the Center for Public Integrity reported on obtained by Rep.  Roy Blunt.  Blunt got a 4 million earmark for EaglePicher a client of his former chief of staff Gregg Hartley. Clearly there is some revolving door can't be stopped.

In Maryland, Brian Griffiths has a post about the earmarks Sen. Mikulski has been getting for her top campaign contributors. She has gotten $42.1 million total for three companies Northrop Grumman, Thales Communications, and L-3 Communications who also have been giving her a generous campaign contributions over the years.

In Louisiana, We Could Be Famous has a post about Louisiana's Ethics Review Board trying to dodge a disclosure requirement. Government organizations who spend more than $10,000 a year have to file financial disclosure forms. However, the Ethics Review Board requested an exemption to disclosing and was granted the request. If the ethics board gets a pass I wonder what other agencies get one too?

AZ Central has a post about the city of Surprise, Arizona's  proposals to build public trust had a few financial mishaps recently and so the city decided to clean up its image. They want to hire an outside auditor to review the books; they will be creating a searchable Web site of city spending. The interesting part of the spending Web site will be that they will update the site when the checks are written not later.  I look forward to seeing the site.

Bluestem Prairie goes looking for stimulus spending. There has been a good deal of research into what the problems of tracking the money given to states has been. There is apparently no one state or federal agency that maintains a comprehensive public list of projects and no one central clearing house for everything. Recovery spending and its affects are hard to determine.  This makes judging Recovery's affectiveness impossible.

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.

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 Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada  and Texas.

Maryland Politics Watch has a list of where to find the earmark requests for Maryland's congressional delegation. The lawmakers from Maryland have requested over$1 billion in earmarks appropriations combined. I wonder if the links go to their transportation earmarks too.

Mississippi's Yall Politics has a post detailing what FedEx has spent on lobbying and how much they have given to former senator Trent Lott's lobbying firm. Apparently FedEx has been lobbying on the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act and the part of the bill that deals with making workers organize with the  International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

In Missouri, Turner Report has a revolving door post about a former state Sen. John Loudon who is returning to the state capitol has a lobbyist.  One of his first clients just happens to be a firm that is run by his wife.

Nevada's Desert Beacon has a great post about the lobbying money around health care.  Blue Cross and Blue Shield apparently spent $1.8 million to date.  With that kind of money floating around there have definitely been a lot of parties happening around health care.

Texas Watchdog has a post highlighting a story about a state Rep. Wayne Christian who apparently wrote an amendment to a bill that would allow only the area of around his beach front property to be developed on.  Apparently in Texas it is illegal to build on public beaches, however, Rep. Christian felt a exemption should be allowed.

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 Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Jersey, Maryland, and Louisiana. In Pennsylvania, Policy blog describes how much the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission spent on lobbying this past fiscal year.  Is it okay for government agencies to use public funds to lobby other government agencies?

In Tennessee, Underdog looks into the lobbying expenses of the GoodYear Tire company and finds some interesting facts about what the company lobbies for and what former hill staffers are now on their pay rolls.

In New Jersey, Blog the Fifth has a great post looking into an earmark Rep. Garrett got for police training.  He makes the point that because of the lack of transparency of earmark requests and how the press sometimes refers to them as “grants” it can make the earmark look bad no matter where it goes to.  That is why we advocate for earmark request transparency.

In Maryland, Brian Griffiths uncovered that one of the appointees for Maryland’s Board of Education was an unregistered lobbyist.  This information was not disclosed to the public and Brian questions why they were given the position even though they have no previous experience in education.

In Louisiana, Between the Lines talks about how most of the members of the Louisiana ethics board resigned after changes to the rules created stricter ethical standards.