Transparency News 5/1/17

Monday, May 1, 2017



State and Local Stories

Rep. Scott Taylor, R-Virginia Beach, spoke out for more transparency in government this week, calling for passage of legislation that would bring the housing finance agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under the federal Freedom of Information Act. “The American taxpayers were forced to lend over $180 billion to save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since the financial crisis hit in 2008,” Taylor said, adding that as both are not under the conservatorship of the federal government, “taxpayers still bear all the financial risk.” That’s why, he said “It is imperative the American people have transparency via the right to submit requests under the Freedom of Information Act to see what the government has been doing over the past eight years to protect their financial wellbeing.”
Daily Press

State officials have opened an inquiry at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. A source familiar with the initial complaint said the Office of the State Inspector General is heading the inquiry and that the complaint dealt at least in part with purchasing. Jeff Lunsford, the foundation's deputy executive director of administration, said in a written statement that the agency is cooperating and that foundation leadership knows of no violations of state policy. It was unclear Friday how much of the inquiry focuses on regular foundation business versus the commemoration. Commemoration Director Kathy Spangler declined comment, saying it would be inappropriate for her to discuss it.
Daily Press


National Stories
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The State newspaper, with other media organizations, is suing the S.C. House Republican Caucus for financial records turned over to investigators as part of an ongoing State House corruption probe. That probe has led to indictments against three Republican legislators – including two House GOP Caucus members. The lawsuit, which argues the caucus is subject to the state’s open records law, comes after The State newspaper first reported the S.C. House Republican Caucus refused to make its records public.
The State

Since President Donald Trump took office, slow Freedom of Information Act processes have become even slower — although it is tough to determine what, if anything, that means. According to MuckRock data from around the time of the inauguration, the average federal FOIA request took 164 days from initial filing to final response. Now, almost 100 days into the new administration, things have only gotten worse. The average response time has creeped up to 168 days — a modest 2.5 percent increase in delay, but still a troubling transparency sign with the new administration.  “We have not received any documents in response to five FOIA requests we filed on day one of Trump’s presidency, none of which were particularly complex,” wrote Aaron Mackey, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation . “It’s hard to know whether the delay is on par with previous administrations or actually a result of changes since January 20.”
Muck Rock

A conservative nonprofit claims in federal court that the  Department of Homeland Security has refused to disclose the criteria it uses to award grants as part of its Countering Violent Extremism program. The Middle East Forum alleges that it instructed the DHS where to find the records in its Jan. 10 Freedom of Information Act request, but the agency — without explanation — rerouted this information to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and subsequently closed the request file.
Courthouse News Service

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Sunday the Trump administration considered changes to libel laws that could limit certain freedoms of the press, but contended that whether any changes happen is a “different story.” Priebus said in an interview on ABC’s “The Week” that change in the libel laws have been considered. "I think it's something that we've looked at. How that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story,” Priebus said, adding that the media needs to be “more responsible with how they report news.”
Fox News

Melanie Stambaugh is in her third year as a Washington state legislator representing the 25th District, located near the city of Tacoma. At the age of 26, Stambaugh is the youngest woman elected to the legislature in 80 years. Like others of her generation, she uses social media to engage with her constituents. But Stambaugh’s use of social media suffered a setback when the state Legislative Ethics Board last year said she violated the rules 44 times by posting state-funded photos and videos on her campaign Facebook page. The board ruling carried $220,000 in fines and an order to remove the videos. In most cases, the matter would have ended there. Stambaugh would have paid the fine and moved on. Instead, she challenged the ruling late last year, claiming the board was too restrictive in how it viewed a 1994 law that says state resources can’t be used for campaigning.
Governing