Transparency News 7/17/14

Join us JULY 21 AT 11:30 A.M. for a brown-bag lunch discussion with Amy Edwards, staff to Sen. Mark Warner, on the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act. This is the newly enacted law that will standardize federal spending data and put it online in easily searched and downloaded formats. Consistent spending data is beneficial to citizens and advocacy groups seeking to analyze budget trends. To be a useful service, the public and press is encouraged to monitor the progress of its implementation. This is free event at the Library of Virginia is the first step! Please RSVP at vcog@opengovva.org.

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that prosecutors pursuing a public corruption case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife will be allowed to tell jurors that he accepted an expensive island vacation from a Henrico hotelier, then intentionally omitted the gift on his annual state disclosure forms. The ruling was one of several blows U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer dealt to the McDonnells’ defense as he resolved almost all of the remaining disputes about how the trial will unfold when it starts in less than two weeks. In one opinion addressing seven issues, the judge ruled in favor of the ex-governor and his wife just twice — and both came with caveats. In another opinion, he ruled that just one of two expert witnesses whom defense attorneys wanted to call will be allowed to testify.
Washington Post

Pittsylvania County is asking a federal appeals court to allow members of the board of supervisors to lead public, Christian prayers before their meetings because of a similar Supreme Court public prayer case ruling this year. State Sen. Bill Stanley, the board’s attorney in the prayer case, said in the court-ordered supplemental brief that the Supreme Court’s decision “requires the federal Court of Appeals to reverse the ruling of the district court” prohibiting the board from opening their public meetings with invocations that refer to Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union claims that the Supreme Court case involving the Town of Greece, New York, doesn’t apply to the Pittsylvania County case.
Register & Bee

The Appomattox County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 last Monday to cut its own salary by 20 percent. Supervisor Sara Carter proposed the salary cut as part of several other budget cuts that were approved during the meeting. The salary cut for the supervisors would lessen their pay from $400 a month to $320 a month. The Board Chairman’s pay would decrease from $500 a month to $400 a month. Combined, the salary cuts add up to an annual savings of just over $5,000. Supervisor Gary Tanner voted against the salary cut, noting that County Attorney Johnnie Overstreet should have time to research it for another month.
Times-Virginian

National Stories

Vincent C. Gray criticized his predecessor for running “one of the most opaque administrations” he had ever seen and singled out its failure to process requests for public records as he promised more transparency during his 2010 campaign for D.C. mayor. But now the ACLU is taking Mr. Gray to task,accusing his administration of unprecedented delays in turning over data sought by the public through Freedom of Information Act requests. The American Civil Liberties Union for the Nation’s Capital has asked the District’s Board of Ethics and Government Accountability to investigate whether the city government is properly handling and responding to such requests after several of their own met with delays.
Washington Times

A financial analyst questioned the rating upgrades issued by Standard & Poor’s to many local governments, saying he was “skeptical” of the agency’s scoring. He noted such practices could encourage ratings shopping by issuers. Since last fall, when S&P released new scoring criteria, the agency has been reassessing ratings for thousands of local governments. Generally, and as predicted by S&P itself, the new criteria resulted in more upgrades of governments than downgrades. But a Janney Montgomery Scott analyst pointed out in his July note on the bond market that those changes have not put S&P’s ratings more in line with competitors Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings.
Governing

The portraits of three former Pennsylvania House speakers and one former top state senator hanging in the Capitol's marble corridors each have new information to tell visitors: their criminal histories. Plaques that add those details were hung Tuesday. Aides to the current House speaker and presiding senator say the new plaques are intended to keep history intact while addressing criticism that the portraits of convicted former lawmakers shouldn't displayed near the likes of Ben Franklin.
Fox News

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday confirmed it is investigating the loss of Internal Revenue Service emails being sought by congressional Republicans in an inquiry over tax scrutiny of conservative political groups. In written testimony to be delivered to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the probe "includes investigating the circumstances of the lost emails" from the computer of Lois Lerner, a retired IRS official. Republican lawmakers have asserted that Lerner, who had headed the IRS unit that oversaw tax-exempt organizations, was deliberately trying to hide information from Congress.
Reuters

Rep. Lee Terry hopes legislation he’s proposing will force the Obama administration to be more transparent about where it’s relocating migrant children from the border. “We’re not being told the truth,” the Nebraska Republican said on Fox News. “It seems like they don’t want the public to know what’s going on.” In Terry’s proposal, the administration would have to notify both the governor of a state where undocumented immigrants are sent as well as Congress. The administration would provide not only a state-by-state breakdown but also a list of the migrants’ court dates.
Politico

The National Archives says it will release previously restricted records from the Clinton White House on Supreme Court nominations, Osama bin Laden and Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. About 1,000 pages of documents will be released Friday through the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., part of a months-long release of White House records. About 20,000 pages of records from Clinton’s two terms have been disseminated since February.
Politico
 

Editorials/Columns

Jay Poole doesn't work for Portsmouth, but perhaps he should. The City Council might get a better return, and more credible and comprehensive information, by offering to compensate the Chesapeake auditor directly for his work, rather than finding it slightly altered and submitted by Portsmouth's own auditor. Because that appears to be what happened. City Council has utterly failed to exercise its responsibility to oversee the auditor's office, one of only a handful of municipal employees that report directly to the board. That effectively creates the conditions that permitted an employee to reap an annual salary twice the city's median household income without filing a formal work-plan for more than a year.
Virginian-Pilot

In a study released last week, the Pew Research Journalism Project documented the decline of reporters covering state legislatures. Since 2003, the number of full-time statehouse reporters has dropped 35 percent. Pew's research just confirms what I've seen over the years: The onus is increasingly on us to seek out what's going on in our state capitols. The do-nothing Congress has forced state legislatures to act – because Washington won't. National issues have made their way down to the states – witness the increase in the number of bills related to abortion, guns, voting and the use of drones. Oh yeah – and Medicaid expansion. These issues grab most of the headlines. Meanwhile, other issues – the ones that affect us every day – are rarely reported on at all.
Vivian Paige, Virginian-Pilot

What a letdown. And what an irony. The Virginia Supreme Court levied damages of just $250 against the nonprofit Energy & Environment Legal Institute in its bid to obtain climate researcher Michael Mann’s emails while he was a professor at the University of Virginia. The tiny award is something of a disappointment considering the importance attached to the case by many observers. Both sides are claiming it as a victory. The court didn’t give a clue about its reasoning, leaving results open to interpretation. Its three-sentence order dealt only with the amount to be awarded to Mr. Mann and UVa — not with the court’s rationale, either for ruling in the academics’ favor or for setting such a small amount in judgment. Our interpretation: The principle of academic freedom was important enough for the court to move to uphold it, but the actual damages to UVa and Mr. Mann were so negligible as to elicit only a small award. Considering all the ambiguities inherent in this case — freedom of information versus academic freedom, science versus ideology, a claim of victory by one side versus a claim of victory by the other — perhaps the Supreme Court’s ambiguous ruling is perfectly apropos.
Daily Progress

Why would seven judges decide that the police can keep information about crime secret from the public? That’s essentially what the Connecticut Supreme Court did this month in the case of Commissioner of Public Safety v. Freedom of Information Commission. Before becoming justices, four of the seven were either prosecutors or city attorneys, and one was an FBI agent — people not prone to informing the public. The justice who wrote the decision, Richard Robinson, worked as a lawyer for Stamford city government under Mayor Dan Malloy. Justice Robinson wrote that the issue should be “squarely on the radar of the legislature” and he suggests that advocates of open government “pursue appropriate legislative remedies.” That’s fine, but before making that recommendation the court reversed 20 years of precedent in Freedom of Information Commission decisions on what police must tell the public. If you think the answer lies in legislation, then why write a decision diminishing what the public can know about crime? Just hold off and let the General Assembly deal with the issue.
Journal Inquirer