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Transparency

To quote Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, “and the hits just keep on coming.” Hits of voter fraud, that is. Three separate cases in Erie and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania give any self-respecting voter (in Pennsylvania or elsewhere) cause to be concerned.
 

In Erie, former State Representative Linda Bebko-Jones, together with her former chief of staff, sat in her office with the phone book and personal address book and forged signatures on petitions to get herself re-nominated. She dropped her attempt when the charges surfaced, but when a former State Senator found out his 87-year-old mother’s signature was on the petitions—even though she hadn’t signed anything—he pressed the matter until Bebko-Jones was given criminal charges by the state Attorney General in late February.
 

In Philadelphia, similar charges are being leveled against two incumbent House members and one contender for a State Senate seat, who are all accused of employing the exact same method of petition forging as Bebko-Jones. 
 

Am I the only one slightly concerned by the adeptness of these state reps, not to mention their staff members, in signature forging? If we don’t get some accountability in government, be it at the local, state or federal level, we’re only going to continue having skewed elections and disenfranchised voters.

The Ohio presidential primary is on Tuesday, and it promises to carry on the illustrious tradition of Ohio elections:  making a big mess. 

Apparently, an Ohio law allows for Republicans and Independents to vote on a Democrat ballot, while maintaining a closed primary system. Which raises the question—should this sort of thing be allowed, or is it acceptable to change parties for the upcoming primary? And how can we be sure that this entirely excludes open primary voting behavior? 

This is the state where, last May, a man was brought to trial for voting twice in the November 2006 elections in different counties. Mere coincidence? As C.S. Lewis once said, “If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.” 

Last week, I posted a column by Brad Flory about legislative shenanigans in Michigan. It’s so good, it’s worth bringing up again. Here’s an excerpt from the second page of the article: 

Committee members kept asking a spectator in the room for his opinions. The spectator gave advice freely, so I assumed he was a Department of Education bigwig. After the meeting, I approached the man and learned he was a lobbyist. My opinion of lobbyists is higher than average but even I was stunned to see politicians make so little effort to hide the fact lobbyists often write laws.

Michigan has many effective and dedicated lawmakers. But it’s clear that not everyone knows what they’re about.

Strong lobbyist influence in Michigan is only increasing. The Associated Press reported last week legislative lobbying spending is up six percent in the last year, to $32.1 million. It’s notable that most of these are multi-client firms—consolidated agencies roaming the halls of the Capitol like mercenaries, rather than citizens or corporations advancing their own interests.

There’s a space, and perhaps a need, for various industries to band together and bandy legislators for support. But it’s important that individual citizens and businesses are aware of and active in their government. Only then can we guarantee that writing laws is not some circular activity, built to please those with the power and those with the influence.

 

Welcome to beautiful Wisconsin—home of cheese, beer and, hopefully, tighter voting laws.

Three years after an initial probe into the 2004 voting problems in Milwaukee, the police have issued a report recommending the elimination of same-day voter registration and requiring photo ID of voters.

The governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle, isn’t a big fan of the recommendations:  “I’m not sure why the Milwaukee Police Department should be the one deciding what the voting policy is of the State of Wisconsin.”

The report attributes blame to poor record keeping and error-prone poll workers. Keep in mind this is the state where, back in January, a Milwaukee man was sentenced with a felony charge for voting while still on probation from a previous felony charge. Such mix-ups would happen less often if states like Milwaukee would just get their voting systems in shape. 

When you think of small-town America, do visions of the friendly mayor and policemen on the Andy Griffith Show typically spring to mind

Not so in Eastover, SC, where a suspended mayor and police chief are standing trial for conspiring to intimidate witnesses in a town council race where absentee ballots changed the results. Six people were running for two positions, and two days after the winners were announced, a review of challenged ballots knocked one of the winners out of the race, with a completely different candidate taking their place by a substantial margin. The court hearing should take about a week to decide. 

While Mayberry only exists in TV Land these days, it’s not too much to expect that our government officials be fair and disinterested when it comes to races for elected offices.   

As the conventions come and go, the chaos never fades. Clark County, Nevada, ended up not sending any delegates to either Clinton or Obama after a chaotic Democrat national convention. About 8,000 delegates showed up at a Las Vegas Casino for the convention, causing the fire marshal to shut down a ballroom. The disorganized nature of the proceedings has caused delegates to be shut out from supporting the candidate of their choice. Both campaigns asked that the proceedings be called off after monumental turnout swelled the county’s capacities. The result is that nothing was completed, and the event will have to be rescheduled.

With such a crucial decision awaiting the Democrat National Convention in the summer, the organized running of these preliminary conventions is more important than before.

The potential disastrous infringement on American civil rights is slowly but surely encroaching. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court dismissed a case brought up by the ACLU concerning President Bush’s approval of government warrantless wiretaps on private phone lines and email accounts. Until now, no judge had ever decided on whether or not such a practice was acceptable in the eyes of justice. Now the silence is deafeningly decisive.

Driving and Voting—two things that Grandma should reconsider when she gets too old to do either. According to the Florida-Times Union, a nursing home assistant has been fined for helping residents with no ID cast votes in recent elections. She admits to filling out patient’s absentee ballots for them and completing paperwork for patients to register to vote. If convicted for trying to sway election results, her offense could count as a felony. However, she maintains that she was “trying to be helpful” by assisting the aged residents, most of whom do not even follow political current events.

Just like the question of when people are too old to safely drive a car, the question of when people are too old to perform the necessary motions of voting needs to be addressed. If you cannot fill out your ballot or voter registration form without help, the honesty of elections is called into question. Senior citizens who know they cannot vote on their own should gracefully bow out of the voting process before allowing meddling nurses or any other such person to become involved. 

As the primary season rolls along, so do the voter fraud incidents. Most recently, in the New York City Democrat primary, it was discovered that votes originally intended for Barack Obama were instead being counted as votes for Hillary Clinton. The extent of this voter fraud was discovered when, in traditionally black voting districts such as Harlem, Obama pulled in next to no votes, and a recount was demanded. 

Before the recount, Harlem’s voting breakdown was 141-0 in favor of Senator Clinton. However, after the recount, the results were estimated at 261-136, still in favor of Clinton, but giving Obama’s vote count a significant boost. As yet, the exact estimates cannot be confirmed, but a ballot-by-ballot canvassing of the voting machines is ongoing.

Incidents like these show the necessity of an accountable, more honestly run voting system, with reliable voting methods in place. 

The Senate voted on Tuesday to allow legal protection to telecommunications companies that cooperate with the government’s covert wiretapping program as a part of terrorist surveillance. The bill now has to go to the House, which is hoping to limit the immunity that telecoms would receive. President Bush threatens a veto if the bill is not the same as the one passed by the Senate.

Terrorism is a valid threat and requires strict measures of defense, but how far are we willing to go in passing law-bending measures in the name of national defense? Currently, the government’s wiretapping program is warrantless, something that should cause Americans to see red flags as opposed to red, white and blue ones.

We need to contact our Representatives, telling them to hang up on this bill before the government eavesdrops on any more private conversations.

Super Tuesday in Southern California saw thousands of registered Republican voters turned away from polling places in San Diego and Los Angeles because they were listed as “non-partisan” voters.
 

Because California’s Republican primary is a closed one, it was commendable that they were taking such precautions (as opposed to the so-called “closed” Florida primary). However, it appears as if the lists of registered Republican voters was tampered with, preventing thousands from casting their vote in the state’s primary.
 

California’s Republican Party is pursuing an investigation of this issue; meanwhile, the media continues reporting that voting “went smoothly.” This from a state where three prominent voter fraud cases have taken place in less than a year, and are just recently nearing a resolution.
 

Let’s hope that the truth comes out, and that these disenfranchised voters can make their voices heard.

Fat Tuesday has come and gone, and while beads, donuts and revelry abounded, there was far more serious fat being thrown into the fire; namely, the glitches that occurred in the voting processes of several states on Super Tuesday. They are as follows:  

• Los Angeles, California:  In one particular polling place in L.A., there was no voting equipment available when the polls opened. Other polling places weren’t even open when they were supposed to be. All the hubbub had one L.A. attorney worried, particularly about non-partisan voters voting in what are supposed to be closed primaries. With so much riding on California’s large bundle of delegates, this is not a good time for “voting irregularities.”         

• Hoboken, N.J.:  The City of Hoboken started Super Tuesday with some rough problems, namely malfunctioning voting machines. While officials scrambled to get the machines fixed or replaced, many voters missed their chance to vote in the state’s primary.

• Chicago, IL:  Notorious for its political shenanigans, Chicago was no exception this Super Tuesday. One precinct worker on the North Side convinced 20 voters that “a stylus for marking electronic touch screens was actually a pen with ‘invisible ink’ to be used for marking paper ballots,” and one woman who showed up to vote was told that she couldn’t because only one of five election judges were present. In the latter case, Oprah came to the rescue—she heard about the problem, and then stayed with the young woman until she was allowed to vote. She also called her on her cell phone an hour later to make sure she had voted.

All in all, Super Tuesday definitely had some major hiccups, despite what the media says about voting “going smoothly.” Hopefully someday we’ll have a Super Tuesday where minor glitches are resolved, and everyone’s vote is counted. 

Alabama’s Secretary of State, Beth Chapman, predicted it would be a fun Super Tuesday in Alabama—and she was right. Alabama’s number of registered voters increased significantly, by some 60,000 new voters, in the last three months, which led to the state’s highest voter turnout in history.
 

It’s good to see citizens engaged and involved, but keep in mind that this is the state where, not even three months ago, we saw at least two significant cases of voter fraud. The latest case included registering dead people to vote, registering the residents of the same nursing home in six different precincts, and allowing at least three convicted felons and one imprisoned citizen to cast ballots.
 

So far, reports say that there were no problems with the voting system—let’s hope that’s truly the case.

The Republican presidential nominee race hit a bump in the road Tuesday with some overlooked voting inconsistencies. According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, poll workers allowed independent voters to “choose” to be Republicans, obtain ballots, and vote in the state’s closed primary on Tuesday. And yet, the state requires that voters register their party affiliation 29 days before the election.

With much hope and consternation riding on the results of each primary in what promises to be a rollicking election year, you’d think that pollsters would be clear on their instructions and firm on where to draw the line. But apparently, the pollster in question was “told” to allow unaffiliated Republicans into the voting process.

Maybe they misheard and thought it was supposed to be “hosed” primary. 

This week, Careerbuilder.com published an article entitled "Earn More Pay Working Fewer Hours."  The article highlights 32 careers that allow one to earn more than the average American income of $37,000 per year, while simultaneously working less than the American average of 40 hours per week.  

A cursory review of the highlighted occupations reveals that half are either government jobs or jobs that are heavily subsidized by government (careerbuilder does not supply this information, but it can be easily deduced from the job titles-- see if you can pinpoint these 16 here).  While an argument could be made that some of these occupations, through educational attainment or otherwise, are entitled to their well-above average hourly rate, at least a few warrant scrutiny, particularly where actual contributions are difficult to measure.

This is particularly true of our public educational system, which houses American's highest, sub-40-hour work-week earners.  University professors average $61 per hour, while enjoying 38 hour work weeks (Law Profs top the list at $66 per hour).  Meanwhile, the average school counselor bring in $29.15 per hour, with school psychologists even higher at $37.64 per hour. 

We all know where the money that pays these high rates comes from, right?  So, are such high hourly rates warranted?  Should these professionals work more hours for their high salaries?  Do we have enough information to answer that question?  Is such information available?  Should it be? 

Because government access is for everyone...even dapperly dressed elephants and donkeys.

The Sunshine Campaign is designed to spur campaign conversation — and commitment — to open government during this election year. Journalists, and anyone else with the opportunity, are encouraged to ask every candidate for public office from president to city council to explain his or her positions on open government and Freedom of Information issues.

The point is to get candidates on-the-record on the issue of government transparency. Voters should not only consider candidates' policy ideas, but also how they intend to carry out their jobs. Many times, much of this can be inferred from what's not said, but getting a commitment up-front is the best policy.

Check it out here, and consider posting one of their ads on your blog or website.  

The Goldwater Institute recently reminded me that these words, uttered by Ronald Reagan to "describe his philosophy of dealing with the Soviet Union on nuclear arms reductions, should also be our philosophy when it comes to how the government spends our money."

That’s where government transparency comes in.

Thankfully, real efforts are being in this arena, at both the state and federal level—check them out here, courtesy of Americans for Tax Reform.

"Citizens should be able to track state spending."  And so writes The Herald, a local Everett, Washington newspaper, on the prospects of more open government in the Evergreen State.

Taxpayer-accountability websites, when organized properly and with effective transparency, can serve as useful tools for citizen involvement.  When the ledgers of government are made viewable to the taxpaying public, wasteful pork barrel spending can be known, scrutinized, and publicized in order to keep their representatives in check.  

According to this morning's article in The Herald, a bill calling for the creation of such a website was killed in the Washington Legislature earlier last year.  Nonetheless, as early as Monday, State Senator Val Stevens will stand up to re-table the proposal. 

Washington legislators should have nothing to hide from the citizen taxpayers.  "How the state spends taxpayers' money is a mysterious and convoluted process to most folks. Lawmakers shouldn't be fearful of shining light on it, even if some warts are exposed. The more open government is, the more effective it's likely to become."  Quite simply, state government cannot expect to be more "effective" while willfully shutting the public out.  The discourse in Olympia concerns the public's own money. 

Voters in Washington should make their views on this clear.  Do not let the Legislature shut out another bill for government accountability in this coming session.  Washingtonians, click here to find seek out your representative and call for open government.

Ever wonder how you could possibly skirt around those pesky open-records laws that require you to provide public information to citizens in a timely manner? Well, here's your guide!

I found the link to this piece through the Lucy Burns Institute's weekly Sunshine Activist interview with John Washburn from WI. He said that he wished he had read it before beginning his various open records requests. 

Indeed, it's got a few helpful tips, such as:

Drive them nuts.  Be sure to repeat this "as soon as practicable and without delay"  phrase to the requester as often as possible with a straight face, especially while scheduling other delays.  Dare the requester to point out your hypocrisy.  Once they do, use the incident to gain more sympathy from your superiors.

And...

Don't say more than you have to.  The law says you need to surrender records, not explanations.  Do not respond to any general questions.  If they're asking general questions, say that those do not constitute a valid open records request and that there's no need to respond.
 

From tumultuous tundra, to flat farmland, to sluggish swamps, taxpayers across the US have reason to celebrate this New Year!

Cheers to Alaskan State Senator Bill Wielechowski who has introduced the "Alaska Open Government Act". If passed, concerned citizens will be able to keep their government accountable with the click of a mouse; the bill would establish a comprehensive website on state expenditures.

Cheers to Ohio State Auditor Mary Taylor and Attorney General Marc Dann who have published and released a resource manual to the citizens of Ohio regarding public records and open meeting laws. In the words of Attorney General Marc Dann, "I firmly believe that government at all levels should be transparent and accessible...transparency and accountability increase the public's trust and confidence in the institutions that serve them".

Cheers to the voters of Louisiana who have elected Bobby Jindal for governor - a staunch supporter for transparency and accountability. Governor Jindal plans to issue an executive order to post the state's expenses online. Sadly, with all the financial debacles during Hurricane Katrina at the local and state level such measures are well overdue - better late than never.

Each day, more and more "Modern-Day Sam" activists and politicians are advocating and fighting for a more open government, and their message is spreading like wildfire! Last year, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Minnesota began posting their state expenditures online, and the governors of Missouri and South Carolina issued executive orders for expenditure transparency. 2007 will continue to serve as a testament to a concerned citizenry as 13 states are now considering taxpayer transparency acts.

And when those local politicians like State Senator Bill Wielechowski reach the federal level, they take their beliefs and passion of a government that serves and get results like Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Faced with strong opposition from spend-happy politicians like Senator Ted Stevens (R-AL) and Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), these two worked tirelessly for the successful passage of the OPEN Act, which strengthened the FOIA and allowed for federal posting of expenditures online. Check it out!

It's a big step to get government to post its spending habits and contractors online, but it's not enough. The data needs to be accessible and easily distributed, which is where enterprising Internet transparency buffs come in.

Jerry Brito, a senior research fellow at George Mason Univeristy's Mercatus Center, writes how citizens are filling the "transparency gap" left by government when it posts gobs of information online in an unorganized and relatively inaccessible fashion:

A number of independent computer programmers have reacted to this failure of government by creating online tools to fill the transparency gap. University of Pennsylvania linguistics student Joshua Tauberer created GovTrack.us to allow citizens to track Congress' activities. At that site, you'll find a page for each member of Congress that lists his or her votes on every bill since 1993, sponsored bills and other details, including biographical information, campaign-finance data and links to videos of floor speeches. You also can subscribe to a feed for a particular legislator or bill and for an instant alert when new information becomes available. 

Brito writes how these organized "unofficial databases" of official information make it comprehensible and distributable to the millions of bloggers and journalists that are just looking for a scoop.

Read the whole thing here.  

Ever wondered how your state spends its (your) money? Or what the state’s spending restrictions are? Or what the top state appropriations are?

Well, if you’re an Oklahoma resident, you’re in luck:  the Oklahoma state government now has a website that allows citizens to learn this information—Open Books:  Oklahoma’s Finances, Online & In Action.

Check it out—and if you’re not an Oklahoma resident, encourage your state to enact similar measures of transparency.

Mike Demkovich, a student at the University of Illinois and a former intern with Sam Adams, designed this ad for his senior portfolio. 500 are going up around the country today.

Just kidding, but they should. Happy Friday!

That’s the title of today’s Washington Examiner editorial, and the news it brings is just as good as it sounds.

Today at 11:30 a.m., USASpending.gov will officially launch. This is the website mandated by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, and it is a searchable online database of federal spending, making it easier for American citizens to keep track of how the government is spending their money.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) were co-sponsors of this important bill—but as you can imagine, many other lawmakers were not as pleased with the thought of taxpayers actually knowing how they blow tax dollars on their pet projects. Despite their efforts to block this important measure, however, President Bush signed FFATA into law—and today is the beginning of a new era of government accountability and transparency.

Read the editorial here, and be sure to take advantage of this important website. It’s your money—you deserve to know where it’s going.

Journalists aren't doing it, so it's time for some people power. Governmentdocs.org is a new source for people to keep tabs on their government.

Take it from them:

GovernmentDocs.org was created to advance the values of open and accountable government. This site gives the public an unprecedented level of access to government documents by allowing users to browse, search, and review hundreds of thousands of pages acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public disclosure, or “sunshine,” laws.

Groups like the Sunlight Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Project on Government Oversight contribute to the database, and individuals can, as well. 

I just posted about the 12 elected officials in Tennessee who were told that their meetings weren't allowed to be kept secret from the public - and their taxpayer-funded retaliation effort.

Well, Tennessee citizens aren't the only ones standing up against hidden government. In New Hampshire, Granite Grok is going through a very similar case.

Granite Grok also shares this fine quote:

Loren Cochan, director of the Freedom of Information Service Center at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Va., said a national trend may be developing at the local level.

"We are seeing that the public is standing up and complaining when they are shut out," he said.

After a judge came down on local officials in Knoxville, Tennessee for holding closed-door meetings, these same local officials started trying to get sunshine laws changed. They've been using taxpayer-funded lobbying in an attempt to make it so they can get away with keeping things secretive next time. 

Thanks to Taxing Tennessee for the story and The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government for speaking out against this shady move.

Asking for open records can seem daunting, but it really isn't. You can do a lot of good with only a little effort (and a lot of patience).

Elizabeth at the NTU blog posted a link to a FOI letter generator hosted by the Student Press Law Center. You can go there, enter your contact information, what you're looking for and who you're sending it to, and you're done. (Then comes the waiting, which can be lengthy as I learned from a former bureaucrat during my meeting in Maine last week. She told me that it's often true that open records requests are stonewalled by the bureaucrats who are supposed to fulfill them. Too bad.)

So send your letters now--it really couldn't be easier. And for more tips on the FOIA and open records, visit WikiFOIA.org.

Hat-tip: Elizabeth at NTU's Government Bytes

It's been a busy day in the blogosphere - find out what people are talking about in this wrap-up of the day's news.

In Wisconsin, it looks like would-be citizen watchdogs are going to have to pay money to access court documents that used to be free to the public. 

According to a Media Matters study, Oklahoma opinion pages are dominated by conservatives. At the same time, a study that's not paid for by the same folks who pay for MoveOn.org, the unbiased The Gallup Poll, says that Republicans remain deeply distrustful of the media.

The housing marketing in Oregon is a mess - and it's no wonder. After all, tax subsidies to the tune of $53 million were pumped into the area, leaving owners with homes worth $800,000 with property tax bills of less than $200.

Kids aren't making it to school in St. Louis, Missouri - that's because the bus drivers are on strike for the second day in a row.  

In California, the leader of the California Assembly, Speaker Fabian Nuñez, is under scrutiny for spending campaign funds on extravagant trips, shopping, and dining.

It's school district referendum seasons - the education unions are out in full force again this year, reminding voters that the only solution to all of the public education problems is more money. Freedom Dogs in Minnesota reminds voting taxpayers to not to roll over, and has signs for those who live in District 281.  

The Framer is thinking about running for a legislative seat in Arizona - he shares some campaign signage tips he's picked up with his readers.

Speaking of campaign tips, Michigan taxpayers are angry about the recent tax hikes and this site explains how to run a recall. 

 

Illinois’s District 300 has made it easier for citizens to submit FOIA requests, reported by the Daily Herald.

Visit their website and click on the “Freedom of Information Act” link to download FOIA request forms and learn more about your rights under FOIA and the Open Meetings Act.

The headline says it all.

Ironic, huh? Of course, it comes as no surprise to anyone that politicians will say whatever they want—or whatever they think will get them elected. But actually doing what they say they will? Well, that’s a whole different story.

“As a state senator, Attorney General Marc Dann twice sued the Taft administration for public records. He likes to be known as ‘Mr. Public Records,’ and wrote a model policy on how local and state government should handle records requests.”

Well, it turns out “Mr. Public Records” still hasn’t fulfilled an open records request made in May.

Read more here.

What constitutes a public record? In Colorado that's being decided in court, with the governor and unions on one side and people who have a right to know on the other.

Brad Jones--a friend this site and the editor of Face the State--is at the center of a battle to make public a memo sent from Service Employees International Union attorney Steven Ury to the Colorado governor's staff. Since the union is collaborating with the governor to craft legislation, Jones says that the so-called "Ury memo" should be made public..and the Rocky Mountain News agrees:

Scott Gessler, who's representing Jones, argues that once Ury sent that memo to the governor's staff, [state representative] Marshall could no longer claim that it was solely her "work product." It became a public document subject to the open-records act, he asserts, and should be fully disclosed.

We agree, and hope the courts will as well. Otherwise, it might be possible for government officials to shield volumes of correspondence with private interests from public view. 

We'll be watching to see how this one pans out... 

Why are politicians always talking about mustering up the votes for a tax increase instead of searching for why all the money that we give them already isn't enough?

In Sam's (new) hometown of Chicago, Cook County Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy has proposed increasing the county's sales tax from 9 to 10 percent. "We just need to do something other than cut jobs if we want to maintain services to our residents," Commissioner Murphy said in a ABC 7 report. Apparently, Murphy believes that raising taxes is the only way not to have a budget crisis next year. Never mind the ever-present crisis of government spending more than it takes in...oh, wait, that's not a crisis per se anymore; it's reality.

Spending Murphy went on: "Cook County is a destination place. We have great conventions and conferences here. The sales tax is going up 2 ¾ percent. That's not a back-breaking increase."

Oh yeah, the cost of doing business in Chicago has nothing to do with people actually coming here to do business. So yeah, let's make it more expensive--that'll do wonders.

And where do the tax increases stop? Once the government gets its hands on that much more revenue, the county commission will have license to increase spending above and beyond, triggering another so-called "crisis" the next time around. It's a never-ending cycle of increasing the non-market driven services that always seem to go way over budget.

How much do government school teachers and administrators make in your neck of the woods?

If you're in Illinois you can find out. A group called The Champion Foundation has a database of the salaries of government school employees, as well as a pension calculator.

Did you know that the New Trier superintendent's pension would be $231,000 with a 3% annual increase? That's paying him not to work! Did you also know that Superintendent Henry S. Bangser's salary increased by $116,000 just since 2003?

The mission of The Champion Foundation is "to act as a counter-veiling force to ineffective and uninformed school boards, administrators, and teachers unions." To that end, they've done a good amount of research for The Champion School Accountability Project. 

Go ahead and do your own digging. Share what you find out. 

A few weeks ago, Mr. Richard grabbed his blankie as he told us a bedtime story from the “Nanny States of America” volumes: government secrecy with an excuse of “for the public’s own good”.

This travesty of secrecy happens time and time again to our fellow taxpayers in various forms. For example, the contemptuously assumptive nature of governmental contravention levies a severe burden on the taxpayer through closed-door legislation. I mean obviously the citizen has no consequential knowledge of an increased income tax; the politician knows what’s best for the taxpayer.

Well, Indianapolis politicians think they do. In a righteously impassioned op-ed, a modern-day Sam Adams, Catherine Burton, exposes the injustice her city-county council allowed. Taxpayers concerned with the appropriations of their money and the increase to the income tax came in force to the meeting with the intention to let their voices be heard. The council answered the concerned taxpayers with closed doors and “casual dismissal” as they waited in the blistering heat.

Even when the politicians previously obliged the oh-so-demanding intentions of citizens wanting to be present at the actual vote on the tax increase, the doors might as well have been closed. In response, members of the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations drafted a letter “calling for greater transparency and accountability in how tax money is spent and criticizing the heavy-handed way the City-County Council treated the public” at the meeting. Now the council can easily repeal the increase, but why would it? 

The all-knowing politicians have a few more "Washingtons" in their pockets, and the citizenry has raised no objections in meeting. Oh wait…that’s right…the only power the citizen has exists in the forward motion of his wrist while knockin' on government's door.

I posted awhile back about how the Contra Costa Times sued the city of Oakland, California, when it wouldn't release individual government employee salaries. Two lower courts had already ruled in favor of the newspaper, but on Monday, the Times got an even bigger victory:  the state Supreme Court ruled that the salaries of California government employees are public record and must be available upon request.

“Openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in a 30-page opinion.

What a great victory for open government. Read the whole story here.

A plan that was supposed to take the politics out of selecting judges now suffers from a severe lack of transparency.

Created as a means to take politics out of the judicial selection process, the Missouri Plan is running into some trouble these days, especially in--you guessed it--the state of Missouri, from where it originated and spread to a good number of other states nationwide. 

Besides having the exclusive unchecked right to nominate state supreme court justices for the governor's approval, the Appellate Judicial Commission doesn't quite like letting the public know how they come to their decisions. Apparently, the commission is also exempt from a statewide Sunshine Law that mandates a certain level of transparency by all such government bodies.

Supreme Court Rule 10 requires that meeting notices go only to the commission's members, making no mention of the public. It requires the identity of candidates for judgeships to be kept secret, except for the three finalists. It mandates the commission vote by secret ballot. And it requires that matters discussed at commission meetings shall be kept confidential.

That leaves a lot of room for accusations of conflicted interests and questionable nominations, doesn't it?

At a minimum, Sunshine Law attorney Jean Maneke contends, the Appellate Judicial Commission should have to abide by the basic rules of other governmental bodies and give public notice of the time, place and agenda for its secret meetings.

A new group called The Adam Smith Foundation is informing the public about this lack of transparency. Check out their website to read more about what they think. 

We've gotten a few responses to our question, "If I were Mayor..." Here are my favorites.

Bill from Arlington, VA- "...change the County Board seats from being 'at large' to 'by district' to reflect the diversity of opinion in the County's neighborhoods."

I wonder, how would that help, exactly? I assume that it would make individual board members more accountable to specific constituencies.

Brennan from Las Vegas, NV- "...end support for and execution of unfunded state and federal mandates."

Sounds reasonable and responsible to me.

Kirk from Ingleside, IL- "adopt an ordinance that banned eminent domain abuse, where gov't takes private property from an owner and gives it to another private entity."

I happen to know that this Kirk is none other than Kirk Denz who fought (and won against) a proposed ordinance at Wooster Lake that would have prevented property owners from using their lake-front property as they desired. 

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. Sam Adams bobbleheads are coming your way.

Do you want to add something to the conversation (and get a Sam bobblehead of your own)? Answer our "If I Were Mayor..." question today!

...you have to THINK like a FOIA-er.

When I was in school I made money by going to people's homes and offices to show them how to use their computers. One of my clients liked to say that I knew how to "think like a computer." She wanted me to show her how to think that way, too, but I didn't know quite how to do that. I guess that you just have to learn how the computer works (or thinks) as you go.

Speaking of thinking in a certain way, this week's Carnival of Open Records features people who have mastered the art of thinking like a FOIA-er, that is, knowing what works when you want to obtain information that you're entitled to see legally.

For instance, there's the story of The Clarion-Ledger and its reporters' efforts to unearth bloated salaries, ineffective restaurant monitoring and a general inability to control diseases at the Mississippi Department of Health. 

As a note, this blog will host next week's Carnival of Open Records, so please consider sending us your tips through Monday the 20th. 

 

Taxpayers in Smith County, Texas, now have a new taxpayer tool before them:  the county’s website will soon include the capability for taxpayers to look up their property taxes online, including how much is owed and where the money actually goes.

If your local government doesn’t already do this, encourage them to follow suit!

Yesterday, through the OPEN Government Act, FOIA took its first steps to a major strengthening in over a decade.  The Senate unanimously passed the OPEN Government Act and the House is expected to pass the bill when Congress returns to session in September.  The President is also supposed to sign off on the bill.

This is major news for all US citizens who work to keep their government accountable as this creates major corridors of transparency throughout the federal, state, and local government.  I am personally very excited about this bill as I feel it will reinvigorate Americans all across the country to file FOIA requests and hold their government accountable.

A major aspect of the bill that truly strengthens FOIA is how it protects the public’s right to know. 

“The OPEN Government Act will protect the public’s right to know, by ensuring that anyone who gathers information to inform the public, including freelance journalist and bloggers, may seek a fee waiver when they request information under FOIA.”

Bloggers!  Hurray, that means even I can file a FOIA and obtain a fee waiver.  If I can keep my government accountable and transparent through FOIA anyone can.  Hopefully the passage of this bill will create a country where the government is once again responsible to those it governs.

Read more about this bill here.

My favorite talk radio guy Neal Boortz featured our very own Paul Jacob on his website on Monday.

Paul wrote in his Sunday Townhall.com column that the Senate Democrats' recently-passed earmark reform bill is nothing more than a red herring, and an attempt to distract people from real reforms proposed by people like Senator Tom Coburn of OK.

The American people aren't fooled. The Democrats' refusal to enact real reform is only one more exhibit of a sick political system. Given a way to choose something other than the career politician-dominated system, the people will do so in a New York minute. 

And no, it wasn't any better under the Republican-led Senate; Coburn didn't have many friends there, either. But Paul's right in saying that people have just about had enough.

Have you? 

14. That's the magic number of times that Denver mayor John Hickenlooper has raised taxes on residents since 2003.

Our friends at Face the State have an in-depth report on the mayor's proclivities on their website today, highlighting comments by one City Council member named Jeanne Faatz who has seen enough in the way of property taxes:

“I recognize that this is one way to deal with the on going needs and I believe in keeping up our assets, but I am not willing to go for more taxes until I am comfortable with how we are spending existing resources.”

Now that's a concept: See where the current revenues are being spent before asking taxpayers for more.

Until recently, a $100 ticket for marijuana possession could have put your car up for seizure. However, thanks to Kelly O'Connell and the California Supreme Court, this can happen no longer.

After the decision was announced, attorney Mark Clausen, who represented O'Connell, told the Los Angeles Times that "several thousand" vehicles had been seized throughout the state, with most drivers getting their cars back after paying "impound fees" of up to $2,000.

Law enforcement officials liked the policy because it acted as a deterrent for drug possession and soliciting prostitution, but if that's true, why not just be up-front about it and raise the actual price of tickets and fines? Maybe it's because legislators did whatever they could get away with. Thankfully, they were caught on it this time.

Blog carnivals are good ways for like-minded bloggers to socialize online. Take, for instance, the new Carnival of Open Records, started this week by our friends at the Lucy Burns Institute.

The point of a blog carnival is simple: A blogger will collect the latest and most interesting information from across the web and post it in a single, consolidated blog post, which then links to all of the various sources. The following week, the carnival is hosted somewhere else, and on and on.

The first edition of the Carnival of Open Records highlights ongoing efforts to reform open records laws in PA; the reluctance of a school district in MO to come clean to the taxpayers on a land deal; and the ineffectiveness of neutered public meetings in WA. 

Read more at the State Sunshine and Open Records blog, and consider participating in the carnival yourself. I'm sure that the Tea Party will host one soon...

I posted before about the Lansing State Journal’s noble efforts to promote government transparency in Michigan by providing a salary search for all state employees, and how they faced some flak for it.

Apparently, some state employees still just don’t get it. What’s good for the taxpaying citizen will undoubtedly incite wails of protest from public officials. The State Senate, in fact, went as far as producing an alternate set of data.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman, however, has it right:  “There is no information that must be more transparent than the use of tax dollars.”

In our electronic age, it's so easy to find information and publish it online for the world to see, all the while maintaining anonymity if you choose. That's why some city governments are fretting as bloggers turn their attention to the local level.

The LA Times today has a nice article on the power that new bloggers are wielding these days:

"We want our words to stand on our own, and with anonymity, the only way someone can judge us is by what we write," said Publius of the Foothill Cities News Blog..."If we send an e-mail to an elected official, the odds are we won't get a response," he said. "But if enough people read it, they are going to have to respond at some point."

We've covered the FCB on this site before, and they do some pretty darned good work:

The Foothill Cities Blog, which covers several cities in the San Gabriel Valley, was the first to report that Assemblywoman Nell Soto (D-Pomona) was absent from the Capitol for 25 days because of pneumonia. It was later reported that she still collected more than $20,000 in per diem pay.

Yesterday, I wrote about Michigan lawyers who got paid to sit around and work on crossword puzzles all day.

Well, today there are more shenanigans from the Great Lakes state, this time coming from those dressed in blue: a narcotics officer stole $2.4 million in cocaine that the department had confiscated. The police department, from what I can see, does deserve some credit: they shared the breach of trust with the public and they suspended the officer in question.

It’s a good thing Hawaii is seeking more government transparency—because taxpayers should know that in Honolulu, Councilman Rod Tam spent more than $4,500 of taxpayer money on dining out.

Each council member is allotted $12,000 of taxpayer dollars for office expenses. You know, computers, office supplies—things they need to do their jobs. Not meals out at Zippy’s.

Those Swedes had a line in the song: "I feel like I win when I lose." Well, thanks to their A.G., Oklahomans may be feeling this way soon...unfortunately.

OK Attorney General W. A. Drew Edmondson has decided that he--not the state legislature--has the power to distribute taxpayer money as he sees fit, by giving it to hand-picked private lawyers who are fighting his fights. The entire ordeal boils down to a pretty dirty tale about chickens and their droppings...

Adam Liptak on of the New York Times writes:

“When someone who is exercising the state’s power stands to gain from that, it violates due process,” said Jay T. Jorgensen, a lawyer for one of the chicken companies. “If you got pulled over by a cop and the cop made more money if he gave you a ticket and less if he didn’t, no one would think that was fair.”

Read more of the article here.

Remember the show 'The O.C.?' Well, this has nothing to do with it.

There's a new website online, and it's called The Open Government Blog, or the "O.G. Blog". (Fans of 'Arrested Development' will notice a parallel here.)

On Friday they covered a development that requires unions to disclose their bargaining records. 'Bout time, too, since those bargaining situations so frequently rely on public dollars. 

 

It's like pulling teeth to get most elected officials on board with transparency measures.

But not the latest contender for San Francisco mayor. His name is Josh Wolf - and this guy says that if he won, he'd wear a mounted, streaming camera during all official business.

Yawn. This is pretty extreme - but in reality, most of the footage would make CSPAN 2 look entertaining. And can you imagine sifting through a month's worth of footage to find the one scrap you cared about?

At least he's got the right attitude though...

Hawaii has more than palm trees, beautiful beaches, and great weather—it’s also seeking greater government accountability and transparency.

Last week, to applause from the National Taxpayers Union, the state enacted House Bill 122, which opens state government spending to taxpayer scrutiny online.

"Hawaii may be America's 50th state, but it is among the first to recognize that accountable government is not a left or right issue, it's a right or wrong issue," said Andrew Moylan, NTU’s government affairs manager. "The other 45 states of this nation should do the same."

Missourians now can, thanks to a new system called MAP: the Missouri Accountability Portal.

A new program by MO Governor Matt Blunt, the MAP website describes it to taxpayers as "a single point of reference to review how their money is being spent." You can search by category of spending, vendor or contract--a pretty comprehensive layout, if you ask me.

Check it out at mapyourtaxes.mo.gov. 

Hat tip: The Adams Smith Foundation.

Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is popular - and it's not just because she's a former beauty queen.

In the land of the infamous Stevens family, this government accountability champion has sky-high approval ratings - have you ever heard of an elected official with 90% plus approval? Me either...that is, until Sarah.

She's fearless. Sarah signed a strong ethics bill into law after a fellow Republican took bribes, used her veto power to cut $237 million from the state budget, and, oh yeah, fired the entire Alaska Board of Agriculture and Conservation.

Plus, she has a superior first name. 

I'm going to add Sarah to my list of living heroines - right up there with Virginia Postrel.

Jenny Granholm, take notes.

When your school districts trustees are corrupt, and they build themselves fancy buildings instead of spending money on students, well, then, what do you do? A citizens' group in Orange County, CA has a plan, and it's called a recall.

The OC Register today reports that a citizens' group called CUSD Recall is prepping to gather 60,000 signatures to recall four school district trustees.  The OC Register writes:

Parents and residents say they will again try to recall four Capistrano Unified trustees, saying the trustees have allowed a "culture of corruption" and "grossly mismanaged finances" in the county's second-largest school district.

Their action comes a week before the district's former superintendent is scheduled to be arraigned on charges of using taxpayer money to produce and keep lists of political appointments.

Check out CUSD Recall's website. It's extremely comprehensive, and is a model for anyone interested in taking matters of school board corruption into their own hands. 

Michigan taxpayers:  have you ever been curious about just how much you’re paying public employees?

Well, look no further than the Lansing State Journal, who—to no small amount of flak—has provided a salary search for employees of the state.

Here are a few, just to whet your appetite:

Governor Jennifer Granholm:  $177,000 plus a $60,000 expense account
Attorney General Mike Cox:  $124,900
Supreme Court justices: $164,610

Gee, who would have thunk it?

The folks at the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party blog are upset that a state-based blogger has come back into the public eye, and is on the forefront of the effort to suggest that maybe, just maybe, ND school boards should have to