Transparency News 1/13/14

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order Saturday imposing sweeping new standards for ethics in government intended to prevent the kind of gifts scandal that engulfed his predecessor, Robert McDonnell. The order by McAuliffe, a Democrat, imposes a strict $100 gift cap on himself and the executive branch. It establishes an ethics commission, including $100,000 in start-up funds, with the authority to monitor compliance and recommend discipline for violators. The order defines “gifts” and “family members” in ways clearly meant to prohibit the kinds of payments, services, goods and loans that McDonnell, a Republican, and his family received from Star Scientific chief executive Jonnie Williams Sr.
News Leader

Roanoke will get passenger rail service within 42 months, a top state rail official said Thursday as he gave new details about the construction of the track and accessories needed. The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation expects the train to arrive by September 2017. But there is wiggle room in Roanoke’s favor. In spite of distributing a press release about the pivotal agreement, officials wouldn’t release a copy of the agreement Thursday. Page said the release had to first be approved by the railroad. That had not happened by the close of business Thursday.
Roanoke Times

If there’s something that courts like less than the combination of negative media attention and the prospect of related regulation by the legislature, we’re not sure what it is. That brings us to theSupreme Court of Virginia’s announcement after close of business Friday that it has begun posting audio recordings of oral arguments made before the full court.  (That is, the recordings are of oral arguments “on the merits” — the arguments by both sides after appeals have been accepted and briefed — not of the “writ panel” proceedings where only one side argues briefly before a panel of three justices to convince the court to take the case.) The posted recordings begin with the oral argument sessions of this past week (the January Session 2014).  The press release states that “Audio recordings will be posted at the end of each week that the Court is in session, and will be archived and maintained on Virginia’s Judicial System Website.”
Open Virginia Law

A Circuit Court judge was correct in 2012 when he struck down a $3 million libel verdict against The Virginian-Pilot, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday. Judge Randall D. Smith shouldn't have let the case go to trial, the court ruled. "I am ecstatic that we have prevailed," Editor Denis Finley said. "This is a victory for every journalist in Virginia." Phillip Webb, an assistant principal at Oscar Smith High School, sued The Pilot in 2010 after the newspaper reported that his son, Kevin Webb, was not disciplined by the school system after an assault that initially resulted in felony charges. Phillip Webb said the article falsely implied he had obtained preferential treatment for his son. Attorneys for The Pilot asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, but Smith let it proceed. A jury sided with Webb and ordered the paper to pay $3 million. "As a matter of law, the article is not reasonably capable of the defamatory meaning Phillip ascribes to it," Justice William C. Mims wrote in a 10-page opinion.
Virginian-Pilot
Full text of opinion

Danville resident Missy Neff Gould has begun her three-year term on the board of directors for the Virginia Public Access Project. It’s a group she has already served for about three years, and she has used the website in her work in lobbying and government relations. As a board member, she strongly believes in VPAP’s goals of providing transparency in government. “The more the public knows about what’s going on, the more likely they are to be involved and informed citizens,”Gould said Friday.
Register & Bee

Concerns over surveillance and collecting of wireless telephone data by the National Security Agency have made strange bedfellows in the state legislature. The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia said it would back a proposal by Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, that would force telephone companies to disclose to customers if they provide phone records or metadata to the NSA or other federal agencies. Marshall also wants to make it mandatory for the federal government to obtain warrants before tracking devices and obtaining location data, which the ACLU also supports.
Times-Dispatch

The Virginia State Parks redesigned website was launched Thursday at 10 a.m. The redesigned site will be more interactive, easier to navigate and faster to search for park-specific offerings. The URL is www.virginiastateparks.gov. According to a news release from The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), this is the website’s most significant redesign since it was launched in 1993. DCR Web Coordinator Steve Hawks said that minor changes have been made to website due to public feedback, state policy and industry standards over the years.
Southwest Times

After months of talk, the James City County Board of Supervisors decided to not taped closed sessions last week. Supervisor Jim Kennedy pressed for a new policy to tape closed session after a dispute this summer about what exactly occurred during former county administrator Robert Middaugh's annual review. It looked like Kennedy finally had a majority that favored taping the sessions, as both Michael Hipple and Kevin Onizuk supported the measure while campaigning for supervisor seats. But Hipple, Onizuk and Chair Mary Jones, who had also said she supported it, reversed course last week. They were turned off by the fact the tapes could be released if a majority of the supervisors agreed. "I don't want it to be used as a 'gotcha' tool," Jones said.
Virginia Gazette

National Stories

Lawyers for the Colorado Mental Health Institute say they should be able to sit in on closed hearings later this month in the Aurora theater shooting case. In a motion filed Thursday, lawyers for the institute say prosecutors will argue during the hearings that the psychiatric evaluation of the theater gunman was "inadequate and unfair." Doctors at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, or CMHIP, performed the evaluation to determine whether James Holmes was sane when he killed 12 people inside the Century Aurora 16 movie theater. "CMHIP and its clinicians have a direct interest in the outcome of these hearings," the institute's lawyers wrote in their motion. According to the motion, prosecutors and defense attorneys do not object to the request.
The Denver Post

An attorney representing Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Commission told state Supreme Court justices Thursday that giving law enforcement officials sole discretion on what information to release from arrest reports would be a bad idea and a radical departure from current practices. Victor Perpetua said the commission has served an effective role over the past 35 years in balancing the public’s need to know against information that needs to be withheld in order to ensure the effective operation of the judicial system. Perpetua made his arguments before the state high court in a case that focuses on whether police can withhold arrest reports from the public and, while prosecutions are pending, simply issue press releases instead.
New Haven Register

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden has announced that his office has launched a new interactive web portal to increase Delawareans’ access to information about the state’s open government laws. The site, at http://opinions.attorneygeneral.delaware.gov, contains opinions issued by the Attorney General’s Office since 1995 in response to complaints that state and local governmental bodies may have violated Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act. While these opinions were previously posted to the attorney general’s website, they were not posted in a searchable format. The new user-friendly portal may be searched by date, statutory reference or keywords.
Cape Gazette

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal by two conservative groups that assert that an Ohio law that imposes penalties for making knowingly false statements about political candidates violates their right to free speech. The groups, Susan B. Anthony List and the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, say that the possibility that the Ohio statute would be enforced against them deterred them from issuing statements during the 2010 election campaign criticizing a Democratic congressman for supporting President Barack Obama's healthcare law.
Reuters

A former sports reporter and a former employee in a university’s publications department, Roger Shuler, 57, was arrested in late October on a contempt charge in connection with a defamation lawsuit filed by the son of a former governor. Mr. Shuler, who has hounded figures of Alabama’s legal and political establishment on his blog, is sitting in jail indefinitely, and now on the list of imprisoned journalists worldwide kept by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
New York Times

Legend has it that the long arm of Texas law once extended to hotel balconies where the men with star badges would take into custody anyone who violated a state statute forbidding people to hunt buffalo from such a perch. The legend ends at the Legislative Reference Library of Texas, where a small team of well-referenced librarians has gone through the records and sorted out fact from fiction when it comes to the laws of the Lone Star State.
Reuters
 

Editorials/Columns

Virginian-Pilot: The perennial effort to establish a nonpartisan commission capable of creating competitive electoral districts is under way again this year. One measure involves a proposed constitutional amendment. If it passes, it would need to be approved a second time by lawmakers after the 2015 election, then approved by voters statewide. Another calls for a nonbinding referendum in November to gauge opinion on whether "a bipartisan advisory commission should be created to propose redistricting plans for the House of Delegates, state Senate, and congressional districts," according to the summary of SB 158. Lawmakers already know the score on this issue, which is why they're so loath to let voters have a say.

Times-Dispatch: Anyone looking for shortcomings in the bipartisan ethics-reform proposal state lawmakers recently unveiled can certainly find them. As Times-Dispatch reporter Olympia Meola noted in a recent article, the $250 cap on gifts applies per item, not in the aggregate. So a lobbyist could lavish a public official with 10, or even 10,000, gifts valued at $249.99 without crossing a legal boundary. What’s more, the limit applies only to tangible gifts, rather than to intangible ones, such as free trips to conferences at swanky resorts. And while the proposal would create an ethics advisory commission, the new body would lack real teeth, such as the power to conduct investigations. It’s not clear how much of an improvement that represents. Nevertheless, legislators deserve credit for getting the discussion started.

Tom Silvestri, Richmond Times-Dispatch: A safe bet in 2014 is you don't have “Get Interviewed by a Reporter” on your wish or bucket list. But given life's unpredictability, it could happen. You do something noteworthy, good (award, achievement, right place at the right time) or bad (crime, accident, conflict) and, presto, a reporter is typing your name into a story. Being newsworthy doesn't guarantee you'll appear in a bylined account in print, on the air or online. The reporter, editor or producer has to discover it, too. That's really when the journalist comes a-knocking.

Shawn Day, Virginian-Pilot: The bipartisan ethics reform package touted last week by Republican and Democratic delegates was a boon for transparency in government, but not in a way that restores public trust in a broken system. Instead, the plan showed just how incapable powerbrokers in both political parties are of proposing laws that hold legislators accountable.

Free Lance-Star: LOCAL SCHOOL officials may think it’s their duty to protect students from the harmful effects of chilly weather, but state education officials are threatening to go way too far in protecting students from exposure to “controversial” subject matter in the classroom. According to a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action issued last fall, which has a public comment period that ends on Wednesday, state officials want local school boards to have an established policy on how to deal with controversial topics in the classroom. This is in response to concerns raised by parents “about the use of controversial instructional materials without parental notification in some school divisions.” Schools must not be in the business of routinely shielding students from information simply because it may be controversial. Controversy is a part of life—a part of pretty much anything worth learning about. And if parents have an issue with that, there’s always home-schooling.