• While summarizing the changes Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst hopes to implement with the Senate Select Committee on Open Government, Curt Olsen reminds, “Initiatives for 'open government' either improve access or hinder it." Olsen maintains that each change should be watched carefully, as, “ State lawmakers can pass laws that enhance openness and transparency or they can pass laws that cause mischief and erect a new hurdle for taxpayers to have access to government." The proposed changes include: “The use of new technologies and future technological advances as relates to the creation of public information” and “Study ways to define and address frivolous and/or overly-burdensome open records requests. “State lawmakers can pass laws that enhance openness and transparency or they can pass laws that cause mischief and erect a new hurdle for taxpayers to have access to government.” For the entire list and Olsen’s opinion, check out his post on Texas Budget Source.
• In her assessment of the state of Minnesota transparency, Mary Tracey maintains, “What matters to most citizens is the right to access to information by and about state, regional and local government information – state agencies, county boards, advisory committees and regulators, every entity from the Governor’s office to the local school board. In her post on Poking Around With Mary, she summarizes the open government portals available to Minnesotans: The twin pillars of access in Minnesota are the Data Practices Act and the Open Meeting Law.  Essential guides to each include these:  Open Meeting Law,Government Data Practices Act.  The Legislative Reference Libraryalso offers a comprehensive list of guides and information about parallel laws and regulations in other states." She urges citizens who are concerned with government transparency to “be aware of the agencies’ responsibilities to assure compliance with the spirit and the letter of the law.”

State Freedom of Information laws are in the limelight again. This time from Minnesota. The state's proposed revision's on FOIA have bloggers writing about the importance of accessing government data before a crisis happens. Charles Leck offers his view on how the state's proposal on what constitutes as public data may affect access to information in Minnesota.  He was also invited to attend a meeting (happening today) about the revisions and will give us an update. You can read his blog at ad astra.

Many ordinary citizens, like I, don’t really understand the importance of accessibility to public documents and information; we don’t understand, that is, until, in a crisis, we really need to get our hands on information squirreled away in the dungeon-like depths of government archives.

There is some rumbling over in the State Legislature about revising or altering one of Minnesota’s most important laws, the Data Practices Act – or the Freedom of Information Act (FIOA). That's cause for concern and it should make many of us sit up and take notice. I don’t think we should allow any changes that would make securing public information any more difficult than it all ready is.

Currently, this process of securing government data information goes through the Information Policy Analysis Division (with Apple’s forgiveness, it’s known as IPAD). The current director of that division of state government is Laurie Beyer-Kropuenske. The operation falls under the state’s Department of Administration.

Current state law defines Government Data as: “all data collected, created, received, maintained or disseminated by any government entity regardless of its physical form, storage media or conditions of use.”

Though the act does not require the data to be maintained in a particular form or format, it is required that the data be “easily accessible for convenient use.” (Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 1)

However, our ability to get at important information in government files is crucial to the process of Democracy – and crucial to the process of protecting and maintaining our rights as free citizens. To repeat myself, the last thing we want are changes to our current law that would make that process more difficult for Joe Blow citizens.

IPAD appears to be pushing for some changes, however, and they argue that the changes are necessary in light of recent budget cuts aimed at “streamlining government operations.”

RED FLAG! RED FLAG! Some of the proposals that IPAD is floating around the State Legislature might redefine what is to be regarded as public data and also changes the procedures that would be followed in applying for and securing such data. Naturally, IPAD argues that the procedures would create a more precisely defined law and make the procedures more efficient.

I’d want to make sure “if I was you” (as my old man used to say). And, if I were you and you live in Minnesota, I’d suggest you start communicating with your State Representative and State Senator right now and ask them to be wary of any changes that might make the procedure of securing public information more complicated. I’m going to send a draft of this blog on to both State Representative Steve Smith and State Senator Gen Olson, my representatives over at the capitol.

It’s already too difficult to secure information. The popular, veteran, and now retired newsman, Don Shelby, wrote in a MinnPost column last April that he “had a career batting average of about .150” on his FOIA filings. “Most of what I wanted to get at, I was told, ‘was none of my business.”

In case you don’t know what a 150 batting average is, it means you have success 1.5 out of every 20 times you come to bat. That’s not very good in one’s attempt to secure information that should be considered public. And, Shelby is not just an ordinary citizen like I am. He’s very familiar with the ins and outs of the current law and its procedures. He also had staff available to wait out the delays that IPAD can create for an applicant.

We simply should not consider changes that would diminish even more the access that is granted to public information. In fact, we ought to be going the other way with FOIA and making access less complicated.

Beyer-Kropuenske claims that IPAD is seeking a public discussion about the policy proposals – proposals, she says, that aren't even written into a proposed bill yet. Nevertheless, she calls the draft that is now circulating, according to Politics in Minnesota (1), a “preliminary proposal that is likely to be introduced this session.”

The IPAD Director is particularly interested in a variety of stakeholders (League of Minnesota Cities and Minnesota Coalition on Government Information). An open meeting was held in December and organizations like the Minnesota Newspaper Association had a representative there. It’s sad, however, that ordinary guys don’t get information about the meeting and we can’t easily get our hands on a copy of the proposed changes.

Even Common Cause of Minnesota, an organization I consider primary in representing my own interests in such matters, heard about the meeting after-the-fact.

A red flag, as far as I’m concerned (having not seen the document) is that a former IPAD director is concerned about it. Donald Gemberling was IPAD’s director for a very long period of time and he now serves as a spokesman and treasurer for the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information (MnCOGI). He alerts us to the fact that the government, under the proposal, could sit on a public data request for six months under certain circumstances.

The proposal also calls for the removal of elected officials from the personnel section of the data law. Currently rules regarding how state legislators and senators should be treated have been up to each body. That, I think, makes them much more accountable to the general public in terms of how they define themselves. A blanket change in the law that defines legislators as “private” would not be wise at all.

At this point, I’m very concerned about just who the director of IPAD considers stakeholders in this matter. There should be many more organizations included in her list and I think members of the press should be included in notices about such “open” meetings. I’d jump at the chance to be included myself. And, I have sent an email to IPAD requesting a copy of the proposals that have been made available to others  that Beyer-Kropuenske considers “stakeholders.” (see copy below)

(1)   Horwath, Justin: IPAD floats proposed changes to public information law [Politics in Minnesota, 13 January 2012]

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.

• Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed an executive order today intended to simplify the process for citizens looking to access government documents through the Freedom of Information Act. The state has been criticized in the past for “complex” and “inconsistent” policies related to requesting government documents in FOIA requests. According to blogger Jennifer Hayes, “The executive order will require all executive branch agencies to adopt a standard policy  for requests in order to streamline the process and make it less costly to the requester.” Markell hopes this will increase the government’s transparency and openness. He maintains, “We knew we had to do better,” Markell said. “Access is vital to the healthy functioning of a democracy.” For Hayes' take, read her post on SussexCountian. 

• Minnesota's Farmington School Board members are changing the way they respond electronically to constituents to avoid potentially violating open meeting laws. Transparency concerns occurred after email conversations with constituents were sent by “reply all” to other board members. This could put board members in violation of open meeting laws. Although email isn’t specifically addressed in the law, issues occur regarding proper responses. School Board Chair Tera Lee said emails could be misinterpreted by other board members as an attempt to sway a vote even if that’s not the way it was intended by the writer."That’s the problem with email too, is that it’s such a grey area,” she said. For the entire story, read Laura Adelmann's post on This Week Live. 

For a while now, we have been advocating for opening up our government through the use of technology and the Internet.  A couple of bloggers in this roundup raise similarly interesting issues - one, focuses on creating efficiencies through technology - and the other, on providing searchable data using technology. However, the journey does not end when government embraces new media. Maintaining the conversations that initiated the creation of this media, is important because it ensures that both the citizens and their government are talking with and listening to each other.

• Fiscal responsibility and transparency in Oklahoma is set to improve. A new website containing data from the Oklahoma Office of State Finance, is now providing information on the state’s spending. AccountabilityOK is a user-friendly  transparency website that shows revenues and tax credits while enabling the public to hold their government accountable. Sid Burgess is offering a few cosmetic suggestions for the website but is quick to thank its creators for opening up government data, on Local Sid.

• A another new government website in Kentucky is now providing information for the uninsured under the revised national health care law. Created in part to get more people in the state more insured, the Kentucky Health Advocate provides health reform information including options on private insurance providers. Tara Kaprowy blogs more about this educational tool on Kentucky Health News.

• Yesterday, the Minnesota government, shutdown after lawmakers failed to agree on the state budget. Sam Richter’s experience in sales and marketing gives us a first hand view on the issues involved in the shutdown. He recommends using technology in government in order to increase efficiency. At the same time, he recognizes that leaders who still want to pass budgets that are in favor of major corporations, because they want to maintain political contributions from them, should start thinking long term and make decisions that will benefit the public. Read more on Know more blog.

• County employees may not be happy about it but residents in Baltimore, Maryland will now have a chance to see their local leaders’ salaries online. Found under the human resources section on the county’s website, the database will show the government employees’ gross pay and expenses. Raven Hill shares that the move was to increase transparency in the way government operates in Maryland.  See who gets paid most on Maryland Politics.

  

Residents of Minnesota now have a new way to keep track of what’s happening in their state with the launch of OpenGovernment Minnesota. The “land of 10,000 lakes” is the latest state added to OpenGovernment, a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation, along with support from the Minnesota Historical Society.*

Visit MN.opengovernment.org to get the real story behind what's happening in government across the state via official government information, local news coverage, blog posts and social media alerts.

Writes David Moore on the OpenGovernment blog:

Now folks in Minnesota can track with ease everything their state legislature does — all the bills that are proposed, votes that are taken, money that was raised, and more. We’ve timed the launch of this, the sixth U.S. state on OpenGovernment, to coincide with the Netroots Nation conference ongoing this weekend in Minneapolis / St. Paul. We’re pleased to share this new public resource for accountability in government and citizen watchdogging with all the political bloggers & issue-based activists there.

* Update: Additional support from the Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program.

Citizen's United opened the door for corporate spending and when Target decided to flex their new political muscle, it blew up in their face due to a disclosure law Minnesota passed in response to the Supreme Court ruling. Target, Best Buy and a growing number of corporations are now looking at voluntarily enacting policies to disclose their political spending in hopes of avoiding fallout that threatens their bottom line. Target has set up a policy page about their 'Civic Activity' that is the product of months of criticism and boycotts following the exposure of contributions through state filings.

It's nice to see corporations moving in the direction towards disclosure, but self-imposed regulations are a far cry from sweeping disclosure laws needed to provide accountability on how the money flows in our political system. The lesson that companies should learn from this episode is that people care about how money is spent in elections.

If pressure from citizens can change corporate policies than we hope that same pressure can inspire Congress to improve disclosure laws.

Today I am giving a high five to Minnesota's Bluestem Prairie.

Written by Sally Jo Sorenson, she keeps track of what is going on in Minnesota.  What attracted me to Bluestem in the first place was the focus on keeping track of Rep. Tim Walz from MN first district.  Sally did a great job of looking into his record and the announcements that would come out of his office. Now the blog has evolved to focus on Minnesota in general and lately they have been doing great research on stimulus spending in Minnesota.

Tired of waiting for your city to become more transparent? Tony Webster, John Schrom and Ryan Johnson decided to take responsibility for their city of Minneapolis and create a software platform in order to "open municipal government, encourage clean and information-based elections, track issues and inspire community engagement and public participation." Their new project is called Open Minneapolis.

Webster, having formerly interned for a city council member in college, had seen first hand how much information never made it to the public or was difficult to access.

Talking with Webster on the phone he explained the rationale behind the project. "There is so much that happens behind the scenes that we don't know about. There has been a lot of great projects at the federal level, and in some cases state level, but not usually in Minnesota. I really wanted that transparency to come to Minneapolis."

The project has been active since July 2009 and this week they launched a site listing their goals and showing some fantastic preview images. As a journalist, having worked with numerous city and state websites across the country, I would eat my hat in exchange for this type of data accessibility and clear user interface.

While all the goals of Open Minneapolis are important to me as a journalist and a citizen one is particularly catching my eye: the implementation of a standardized XML format for public meetings.

Municipal meetings are difficult enough to sit through in person. Waiting to mine a PDF release for the data you need is even worse. With the implementation of an XML format for public meetings analysis of this data will become a breeze.

Imagine visualizations of city council actions going back years or interactive flow charts showing how a particular proposal was fought over. Ideas that are possible now but only with a disproportionate amount of work - an XML standard would make it straightforward and quick.

The team behind Open Minneapolis has formed a charitable non-profit, CivicEquity, that would oversee such a standard as it expanded beyond Minneapolis. CivicEquity would also distribute the software Open Minneapolis is based on: the team will release it as open-source for any non-commercial use!

As the Sunlight Foundation expands its activities into states and cities it is projects like these that will truly make our mission successful.

If you're interested in policy work, web development, have legal expertise or data acquisition experience head on over to their site and get involved today. The team has a grant application to the 2010 Knight News Challenge - their grant proposal is here - please rate it!

This year has seen more attention than ever given to transparency - most focused on the White House and federal government.  That's no surprise given the years of "rain-checked" reforms.  Change is needed at a fast pace and in more areas.  But the pressure to deliver extends beyond Washington DC.  State legislatures across the country are starting to reexamine their own data, transparency rules and regulations. Earlier this month, Minnesota legislative staff met with department heads, IT experts and non-profit leaders to discuss possible changes.

The state legislature in Minnesota finds itself in a challenging situation. Engaged citizenry who are clamoring for more access, more data and a better user interface for the legislature’s web site versus a state budget that has been cut down to the bone by massive state deficits as far as the eye can see.

Legislative staff see the need for additional transparency and real time data but are challenged to deliver with scarce financial resources on one hand and a deeply federated departmental system on the other.  Politicians are loathe to legislate unfunded mandates (or a funded one for that matter).

Let’s be clear though: if introducing data standards and increasing transparency costs government more in the long run - they’re doing it wrong.

Dan McCreary, Semantic Solutions Architect at Syntactica in Minneapolis, attended the meeting with legislative staff.  McCreary estimates that “$100 million per year in Minnesota alone” could be saved if the legislature adopted “National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) standards for all statewide data exchanges."  NIEM standards are developed jointly by the US Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.

Donna Roy, Chair of the NIEM National Priority Exchange Panel says the "[Minnesota] Department of Public Safety anticipates saving over $10 million over a three-year period by using the XML Data Model rather than developing its own statewide standard for information systems."  That's just one change in one department!  If state legislatures can save money by sharing information between departments they can definitely find the money to share that information with the public.

State legislators need to start seeing transparency as improving service while cutting costs. Without the grassroots backing strong legislation, change will be slow or non-existent in Minnesota.

I'll be diving deeper into the transparency movement in Minnesota in future posts.  Tell me about your challenges or success stories in getting data out of the legislature.  Comment below or reach me on Twitter @noahkunin.