Transparency News 4/15/16
State and Local Stories
VCOG is happy to announce the return of its records management and FOIA workshop: Thursday, May 19, from 9:30 to 12:30 at the Library of Virginia.
This three-hour course will provide government employees who manage state and local public records updates and insights by professionals at the Library, the FOIA Council and the City of Alexandria.
The cost is $15 and is open to anyone, though most useful to government employees. A certification of completion will be offered.
Details & registration
Forty-four of Virginia’s 140 part-time, citizen lawmakers own at least $5,000 worth of stock in companies that lobby the General Assembly. Nineteen of those lawmakers own somewhere between $50,000 and $250,000 in stock in those companies with interests before them, while seven lawmakers own more than $250,000 in stock, according to figures released Thursday by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics. The listings — of individual holdings, excluding mutual fund investments — provide insight into how elected officials invest their money in the stock market, and how much of it they have to invest. Not surprisingly, the most commonly held stocks among lawmakers are blue-chip investments ranging from tech behemoths to energy, health care and banking.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Pharmacies that go along with Gov. Terry McAuliffe's plan to secretly supply Virginia with execution drugs risk breaking state and federal laws governing controlled substances, a top administration official said in internal emails going back more than two years. McAuliffe, a Democrat, this week proposed allowing the state to hire compounding pharmacies to make lethal-injection drugs, which have become scarce amid public pressure on American pharmaceutical companies and a European export ban. He proposed a similar idea last year, but it collapsed in the General Assembly because of concerns over the secrecy provisions meant to shield the pharmacies from political heat. Given the increasing scarcity of the drugs, the plan may have a better chance of being approved when the legislature reconvenes Wednesday. The state's top official for pharmacy oversight flagged problems with the idea as early as 2014, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.
Washington Post
More than 20 students from Strasburg High School and a few school officials filled the benches outside a courtroom Thursday where a hearing was held for seven defendants facing charges linked to an incident on a school bus carrying members of the boys’ junior varsity and varsity basketball teams. The outcome of the hearing, which involved prolonged negotiations between Commonwealth’s Attorney Amanda McDonald Wiseley and defense attorneys for the students, remained unknown at the conclusion of the day. None of the parties allowed into the closed courtroom would comment about what transpired inside.
Northern Virginia Daily
Residents of Petersburg who’ve gone months without accurate water bills left a town hall meeting Thursday evening even more upset and confused following revelations from the attorney hired to investigate the city’s billing fiasco. Within minutes of its start, a presentation on the investigation by political operative Paul Goldman dissolved into an interrogation from the roughly 150-member crowd packed into Union Train Station. Residents wanted to learn how and why some people are getting no bills while others are being billed thousands of dollars. Crowd members in turn criticized the city and derided Goldman as they pushed for clarity about whom he represents and who is to blame for the cash-strapped city’s woes.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
National Stories
Microsoft is suing the government over a federal law that lets authorities examine its users' email or online files without their knowledge. It's the latest conflict between the tech industry and U.S. officials over individual privacy rights. Law enforcement officials want freedom to view a treasure trove of information — including emails, photos and financial records — that customers are storing on electronic gadgets and in so-called "cloud" computing centers. Microsoft says the U.S. Justice Department is abusing the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which allows authorities to obtain court orders requiring it to turn over customer files stored on its servers, while in some cases prohibiting the company from notifying the customer. Microsoft says those "non-disclosure" orders violate its constitutional right to free speech, as well as its customers' protection against unreasonable searches.
Fox News
Florida government agencies that lose lawsuits filed by people seeking access to public records will have to pay plaintiffs’ attorney fees, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a Jacksonville-based case. And it doesn’t matter if the agency didn’t know it was breaking Florida’s public records laws when it denied or limited access to records, the court ruled. “This is really important,” said Barbara Petersen, president of the open government watchdog group First Amendment Foundation. “It’s not a penalty. They don’t pay damages or anything. They simply have to pay our attorneys’ fees if we have to sue them and take them to court for violating our rights.”
WINK
Editorials/Columns
Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D, says the electric chair is inhumane and instead recommends that the Department of Corrections be allowed to obtain the drugs from hidden contractors and then pharmacies compounding the drugs also be kept secret. In theory, the secrecy would exist to protect the contractors and pharmacies from civil lawsuits. In reality, states who have enacted such laws — including Arkansas, Ohio and Missouri — are facing legal challenges. Secret government contractors? What a bad idea for everyone except lawyers hired to preserve government transparency, already in short supply in Virginia.
News Leader
Six current and former Virginia senators are in contempt of court for not turning redistricting records over to the court. For Virginia lawmakers to defy a court seems scandalous — yet another bizarre twist in the contretemps over Virginia’s practice of gerrymandering. Both Republicans and Democrats are resisting the court order to supply documents, because lawmakers of both parties will benefit if a court confirms their right to do so. If that happens, we can expect legislators to invoke that right as often as possible. There’s little that lawmakers like less than being compelled to expose their backroom deal-making to the gaze of the public. We understand the state constitution’s effort to protect lawmakers from such distractions as frivolous lawsuits. But they should not be protected from having to submit documents to a court on a legitimate issue having to do with the public welfare.
Daily Progress
Norfolk City Council granted Nauticus $1 million to buy the schooner Virginia to keep the replica Virginia Pilot vessel in Virginia waters to be used to teach underprivileged kids how to sail. That may be a good thing. What definitely isn’t good is the lack of transparency and the machinations that sealed the deal.
Kerry Dougherty, Virginian-Pilot
