Local Sunlight
This week I have highlights from Georgia,
Missouri’s Turner Report, highlights state Senator Kevin Engler (Farmington) bill that would ban public officials from accepting meals, beverages, tickets to sporting events, and other forms of entertainment from lobbyists. This is a big lobbying reform bill, and Local Sunlight will be keeping tabs on its progress.
Right Michigan has an interview with State Representative Brian Cally (
Anything else you’d like to discuss or address with the bloggers at Right Michigan
Open government is good government. Perhaps the biggest weakness in state government today is that much of the decision making process is not open to public scrutiny. Take the budget debate for example. Many of the details on line item spending are kept secret, even from the legislature who is charged with approval of the budgets. I’ll bet the budget would be balanced without tax increases if every single line item of state government spending was published on www.michigan.gov.
Kudos to Rep. Cally for being open to the bloggers and good government.
Bloggers love/hate earmarks. My travels through the blogosphere have led me to find a lot of attention given to earmarks. So in order to keep Local Sunlight by being swallowed by earmark highlights I am introducing Earmark Corner. Gather the kids around the fire and lets see some earmarking from
Over in
New Mexico FBIHOP’s LP highlights Sen. Pete Domenici’s 25 billions “gift” to nuclear power companies in the omnibus energy bill.
That’s all I have for this week. Thanks local bloggers. Keep the Sunlight shining!