Transparency News 1/9/2017
Monday, January 9, 2017
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
New bills added to VCOG’s legislative chart include...
- SB972, which would require all government to respond to information requests made by General Assembly members and that records provided to them under FOIA can’t be redacted.
- SB1040, which would provide an exemption for all “personal contact information,” including a business’ address/email/phone.
- HB1677, which would require consideration by committee and a recorded vote for all proposed legislation and resolutions.
- HB1678 and HB1679, which both have to do with making the names of chemicals used in fracking exempt from disclosure
- HB1701, which proposes to increase membership of the FOIA council by one media member.
Keep track of these and other bills throughout the session on VCOG’s website.
The advocacy group Progress Virginia wants to open the General Assembly's most important deliberations -- those of its committees -- to the whole state with a project to provide daily live streams of hearings. Virginia, as the Daily Press has reported, is one of only nine states that doesn't already do so. “Virginia’s legislature is purposefully opaque to the citizens it’s supposed to be serving,” said Progress Virginia executive director Anna Scholl. “But this is one area where we don’t have to wait for politicians to take action ... Elected officials are there to do our business and now more citizens than ever before we be able to monitor those actions in real time.” Progress Virginia’s will put its live feeds online at www.EyesonRichmond.org once the General Assembly session starts.
Daily Press
State funding for higher education, freedom of speech on campus and tweaks to public records law are on the agenda at the upcoming General Assembly session in Richmond. HB 1539 would eliminate the protection of public officials’ correspondence, which is currently shielded from records requests by the “working papers” exemption. The exemption may have kept legislators from seeing some of Sullivan’s correspondence records last summer, when the General Assembly was investigating UVa’s Strategic Investment Fund for allegations of financial mismanagement (which investigators found no basis for). Open-government advocates welcome the proposed changes but are skeptical that they’ll have much real-world impact.
Daily Progress
After more than four decades of political history — and histrionics — the General Assembly Building has reached its final chapter. The building — a patchwork of four structures now riddled with asbestos, mold and other hazards — will host its final session of the Virginia General Assembly beginning Wednesday. With the exception of a historic facade facing Capitol Square, the building will be demolished later this year to make way for a new home for the legislature, its agencies and the visiting public.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Several government watchdog groups are criticizing a recent proposal from U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, that would have stripped down an organization that investigates members of the House of Representatives accused of wrongdoing. Several different government watchdog agencies expressed concern with the proposal’s implications. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said he was baffled by the idea of banning anonymous sources from filing complaints. Likewise, Elizabeth Hempowicz of the Project on Government Oversight, another watchdog group, said the content of the amendment is equally as troubling as the behind-closed-doors nature of its deliberation and announcement. Goodlatte’s statement said the media narrative of the amendment is largely incorrect. “Claims that his amendment in any way gutted or eliminated the Office of Congressional Ethics are false,” Breeding said. However, Hempowicz said otherwise. “I couldn’t disagree more strongly,” she said in response to Breeding’s statement. “Once you take away independence from an office of government oversight, you’re essentially gutting the office.”
Northern Virginia
National Stories
A heavily redacted Friday evening data dump by the FBI revealed almost nothing about how the agency was able to break into the locked iPhone of one of the gunmen in the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino. The Justice Department released close to 100 pages of records in response to a lawsuit by USA TODAY and two other news organizations.
USA TODAY
Editorials/Columns
Last month the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging produced a report on the pharmaceutical industry, focusing on companies that cite research and development expenses as the rationale for jacking up prices on drugs that they had no hand in researching or developing. Committee chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, described "egregious price increases on a number of decades-old drugs acquired by pharmaceutical companies that act more like hedge funds." Virginia, as the case with other states all across the nation, is currently dealing with this issue. "Specialty drugs," which provide vital care to a relatively small number of patients dealing with rare or complex afflictions such as Hepatitis C, are beginning to dominate state Medicaid spending at an alarming rate of increase. This could very well be justifiable, if those pharmaceutical companies would share the financial ledgers as an assurance that the increase is due to high cost of developing new medicines, and not simply an unconscionable act of price-gouging.
Daily Press
According to advice as ancient as the church, “Live your life so the pastor doesn’t have to lie at your funeral.” Charles Colgan reached the pinnacle. The longest-serving state senator in Virginia history, he earned respect from both sides of the aisle. He was a Democrat who impressed Republicans. Colgan represented a Northern Virginia District that began as a rural swath but later joined suburbia. The district’s demographics may have changed but his principles and sensibilities did not. Colgan championed transportation and budgetary sanity. He displayed a pleasing manner. His shoulder did not bear a chip. He was the antithesis of the angry white male. State and national waves did not weaken his bonds with the electorate. Colgan died recently at 90. The praise from Democrat and Republican alike was effusive. No one lied.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Richmond Times-Dispatch is ending its relationship with PolitiFact. The Times-Dispatch signed on in 2010 as the Virginia franchise for PolitiFact, the fact-checking service created by the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Since then, our PolitiFactVirginia team has fact-checked hundreds of statements by politicians, pundits and political organizations. We understand that now, more than ever, it remains critical to hold politicians accountable for what they say. Readers deserve the truth. But we believe it’s the role of all of our reporters — not just a small fact-checking team — to provide readers with that context. You deserve to know when someone is telling the truth, bending the truth or ignoring it altogether.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The advocacy group Progress Virginia wants to open the General Assembly's most important deliberations -- those of its committees -- to the whole state with a project to provide daily live streams of hearings. Virginia, as the Daily Press has reported, is one of only nine states that doesn't already do so. “Virginia’s legislature is purposefully opaque to the citizens it’s supposed to be serving,” said Progress Virginia executive director Anna Scholl. “But this is one area where we don’t have to wait for politicians to take action ... Elected officials are there to do our business and now more citizens than ever before we be able to monitor those actions in real time.” Progress Virginia’s will put its live feeds online at www.EyesonRichmond.org once the General Assembly session starts.
Daily Press
State funding for higher education, freedom of speech on campus and tweaks to public records law are on the agenda at the upcoming General Assembly session in Richmond. HB 1539 would eliminate the protection of public officials’ correspondence, which is currently shielded from records requests by the “working papers” exemption. The exemption may have kept legislators from seeing some of Sullivan’s correspondence records last summer, when the General Assembly was investigating UVa’s Strategic Investment Fund for allegations of financial mismanagement (which investigators found no basis for). Open-government advocates welcome the proposed changes but are skeptical that they’ll have much real-world impact.
Daily Progress
After more than four decades of political history — and histrionics — the General Assembly Building has reached its final chapter. The building — a patchwork of four structures now riddled with asbestos, mold and other hazards — will host its final session of the Virginia General Assembly beginning Wednesday. With the exception of a historic facade facing Capitol Square, the building will be demolished later this year to make way for a new home for the legislature, its agencies and the visiting public.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Several government watchdog groups are criticizing a recent proposal from U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, that would have stripped down an organization that investigates members of the House of Representatives accused of wrongdoing. Several different government watchdog agencies expressed concern with the proposal’s implications. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said he was baffled by the idea of banning anonymous sources from filing complaints. Likewise, Elizabeth Hempowicz of the Project on Government Oversight, another watchdog group, said the content of the amendment is equally as troubling as the behind-closed-doors nature of its deliberation and announcement. Goodlatte’s statement said the media narrative of the amendment is largely incorrect. “Claims that his amendment in any way gutted or eliminated the Office of Congressional Ethics are false,” Breeding said. However, Hempowicz said otherwise. “I couldn’t disagree more strongly,” she said in response to Breeding’s statement. “Once you take away independence from an office of government oversight, you’re essentially gutting the office.”
Northern Virginia
National Stories
A heavily redacted Friday evening data dump by the FBI revealed almost nothing about how the agency was able to break into the locked iPhone of one of the gunmen in the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino. The Justice Department released close to 100 pages of records in response to a lawsuit by USA TODAY and two other news organizations.
USA TODAY
Editorials/Columns
Last month the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging produced a report on the pharmaceutical industry, focusing on companies that cite research and development expenses as the rationale for jacking up prices on drugs that they had no hand in researching or developing. Committee chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, described "egregious price increases on a number of decades-old drugs acquired by pharmaceutical companies that act more like hedge funds." Virginia, as the case with other states all across the nation, is currently dealing with this issue. "Specialty drugs," which provide vital care to a relatively small number of patients dealing with rare or complex afflictions such as Hepatitis C, are beginning to dominate state Medicaid spending at an alarming rate of increase. This could very well be justifiable, if those pharmaceutical companies would share the financial ledgers as an assurance that the increase is due to high cost of developing new medicines, and not simply an unconscionable act of price-gouging.
Daily Press
According to advice as ancient as the church, “Live your life so the pastor doesn’t have to lie at your funeral.” Charles Colgan reached the pinnacle. The longest-serving state senator in Virginia history, he earned respect from both sides of the aisle. He was a Democrat who impressed Republicans. Colgan represented a Northern Virginia District that began as a rural swath but later joined suburbia. The district’s demographics may have changed but his principles and sensibilities did not. Colgan championed transportation and budgetary sanity. He displayed a pleasing manner. His shoulder did not bear a chip. He was the antithesis of the angry white male. State and national waves did not weaken his bonds with the electorate. Colgan died recently at 90. The praise from Democrat and Republican alike was effusive. No one lied.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Richmond Times-Dispatch is ending its relationship with PolitiFact. The Times-Dispatch signed on in 2010 as the Virginia franchise for PolitiFact, the fact-checking service created by the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Since then, our PolitiFactVirginia team has fact-checked hundreds of statements by politicians, pundits and political organizations. We understand that now, more than ever, it remains critical to hold politicians accountable for what they say. Readers deserve the truth. But we believe it’s the role of all of our reporters — not just a small fact-checking team — to provide readers with that context. You deserve to know when someone is telling the truth, bending the truth or ignoring it altogether.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Categories:
