Transparency News 2/12/16

State and Local Stories

In addition to defeating the bill that would have required recorded votes on all bills (see story below), several other legislative panels addressed bills affecting public access to government records and meetings.

A House money subcommittee killed a bill that would have required public bodies to record their closed sessions for use only in the event of a dispute (in other words, these wouldn’t have been subject to FOIA’s disclosure). The bill had a more than $3 million price tag for state agencies.

The House FOIA subcommittee did not advance a bill that started out as one to criminalize certain FOIA violations. The bill yesterday had been substituted to now allow the immediate dismissal of employees who didn’t properly respond to certain requests. The bill will go to the FOIA Council where Del. LeMunyon (subcommittee chair and chair of the FOIA Council) vowed to come up with something because the patron (Del. Morris) had “really hit on something.”

The same subcommittee started its docket light when the patrons of three FOIA bills voluntarily asked their bills to be taken off the docket and sent to the FOIA Council: one to open up criminal investigative files, one to allow judges to void actions taken at meetings where notice of the meeting was improper, and one that would have exempted information on juveniles retained by public libraries.

The full General Laws Committee did advance a bill to overturn a Supreme Court decision that undid the duty to redact, as well as a bill to expand the membership of the FOIA Council and add one more working journalist to the roster.

The Senate Rules Committee defeated a bill that would have allowed the chair of a committee to require someone speaking before the committee to swear and oath and would have knowingly made false statements a Class 1 misdemeanor.

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The bill to require recorded votes died without a recorded vote Thursday morning. The bill carried by Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge County, would have ended the House of Delegates practice of killing bills through motions to table on nameless voice votes in committees and subcommittees. “Just the irony of having an unrecorded voice vote on a bill about recorded voice votes speaks for itself,” said Megan Rhyne, executive director for the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
News & Advance

The Senate Rules committee is where they change the rules. And on Thursday, with little fanfare, senators began the process of making significant changes to the rules governing one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed last year: Ethics reforms embedded into the Conflict of Interest Act covering state and local government officials and legislators. Senators on the panel took several bills that revise, rescind and in some cases expand the threshold for disclosure of gifts and rolled them into one piece of legislation, Senate Bill 692, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr.,  R-James City. The new bill includes a revision proposed by Sen. Richard H. Black, R-Loudoun, that would exempt “food and beverages” from the definition of gifts that must be disclosed and counted toward the $100 annual aggregate gift amount that lawmakers can accept from lobbyists and their principals. Black told fellow senators that last year’s legislation had “unintended consequences” that have been “demeaning to us as legislators,” because of “the very notion that if somebody gives me a prime rib as opposed to a hamburger I’m going to change my vote.” “I want to preserve the dignity of the legislature,” he added. “I don’t think anybody is going to be influenced by a fine meal.” The new bill also includes a provision offered by Sen. Stephen D. Newman, R-Lynchburg, that would prohibit lobbyists from disclosing the name of any “legislative or executive official, or a member of his family” if the official pays their own way at an event that is subject to being reported.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

A veteran Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter, a critically acclaimed novelist and an advertising executive who led a team that created one of the industry’s best-known slogans are among the seven 2016 inductees to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. The group to be inducted at the 29th hall ceremony on April 7 will join 158 others honored for achievements in the fields of Virginia media, organizers said Thursday.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Portsmouth School Board plans to vote today on changing the location of two meetings to high schools.  Generally, the board meets monthly in the City Council chambers at City Hall. The change, slated for the April and October meetings, aims to encourage greater turnout and parental involvement. “A lot of times, parents are not going to come down to City Hall,” chairman Claude Parent said. “As board members we have to make ourselves accessible.”
Virginian-Pilot

A code of ethics outlining the moral responsibilities of the Amherst County Board of Supervisors was unanimously adopted last week. Supervisor L.J. “Jimmy” Ayers made a request for the document at a previous meeting. The resolution appeared before the board for approval at last week’s meeting. The document states supervisors will adhere to the 17 listed points because their office is a public trust and stewardship of the office “requires a superior degree of ethical conduct on their part.” Among responsibilities are points such as giving loyalty to Amherst County as a whole above individuals, districts or particular groups, and seeking to find the most “equitable, efficient, effective and economical means” for doing county business.
New Era-Progress

National Stories
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Michael Best wants to round up as many CIA documents as he can and publish them online for free. Currently, more than 11 million pages of declassified CIA documents are publicly available via an electronic database called CREST, or the CIA Records Search Tool. While some of these documents -- like a batch of UFO related files the CIA cleverly calls its X-Files -- are available online, many can only be seen by visiting a National Archives building in Maryland. Making things even more complicated, only four tucked-away computers can access the database and it's only staffed for half a day, according to Best.
CNET News

An Arizona House memo that Republican leadership says was simply intended to clarify the chamber's prayer policy has angered some secularists who say it discriminates against anyone who doesn't believe in God. Republican House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro, a pastor, sent the memo explaining the rules for lawmakers wishing to lead the daily prayer on the House floor. Lawmakers can either offer a prayer themselves or invite "a member of the clergy" to give it on their behalf. Members who wish to instead offer a moment of silence, recite a poem, express personal sentiments or speak rather than pray, according to the memo, are invited to do so during another part of the daily procedures.
USA Today


Editorials/Columns

PROPOSALS TO REFORM Virginia’s crooked redistricting process met an ignoble if sadly predictable end last week. The ritualistic sacrifice this time was handled by a House subcommittee whose members spent a total of 35 minutes discussing the five bills before killing them by voice vote. The proposals ranged from the codification of guidelines for future redistricting efforts to the creation of an independent commission to draw district lines, thereby removing that responsibility from direct legislative control. By varying degrees, these bills took aim at a process rife with abuse and tainted by politics. But their defeat was a foregone conclusion, since thwarting redistricting reform has become an annual rite of each legislative session. A refusal to seriously consider, much less approve, these proposals does a tremendous disservice to citizens and ignores the mounting evidence that the commonwealth’s redistricting process no longer serves Virginia’s best interests.
Virginian-Pilot

Let’s try to make some sense out of the controversy in Montgomery County over the clerk of court, shall we? (Spoiler alert: Neither side will like our analysis of the situation.) First, the basic facts, which aren’t really in dispute: Last fall, Erica Williams stood for re-election. Among the things she cited on her behalf was a “qualified and dedicated” staff of deputy clerks. After she won election, and prepared for a second term, she declined to re-appoint four of those deputy clerks (a fifth declined reappointment.) That’s about half her nine-member staff who apparently went from “qualified and dedicated” to out of a job. Technically, the deputy clerks weren’t fired; they simply weren’t re-appointed, although the end result surely felt the same to them. Now, there’s a public uproar in Montgomery County, with a petition being circulated trying to get Williams removed from office, and the Board of Supervisors is demanding answers and threatening to cut her pay.
Roanoke Times