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 posts from Texas, Hawaii and Illinois.

In Texas, Lubbok County Register has a story about the county withholding public records. Apparently the author has had several requests denied or ignored.  It seems Lubbock needs to catch up on their FOI requests because this lack of transparency is not doing them any favors.

In Hawaii, ILind.net has a story about fundraisers thrown for Lt. Governor Aiona in California.  And reflects on how events like this will be affected if Hawaii puts limits on nonresident campaign donations.  Also enjoy the video of meal time with eight cats.  It might just be me, but there seems to be a certain similarity between a political fundraiser and a house with eight cats.

In Illinois, Prairie State Blue has a story about stimulus transparency in Illinois.  Apparently according to the Good Jobs First study, Illinois has scored a whopping ZERO on transparency measures.  There is a lot of transparency work that needs to be done in Illinois in every facet.

Also in Illinois, Capitol Fax Blog has a story about “Illinois State’s Attorneys Association and the Illinois Municipal League sent separate letters to Gov. Quinn that lobbied against the proposed FOIA rewrite bill.”    The bill wants to create a Public Access Counselor who would have the final say in FOIA requests, the attorneys association says that the final say should be by the courts and so are not supporting this legislation.   This is an interesting change to policy.  Are there any other states that have a Public Access Counselor?