Transparency News 12/12/15

State and Local Stories

Rivers of money flow through Virginia politics. Individuals and corporations can give unlimited amounts in a system that has long favored disclosure over restrictions. When legislators moved in the wake of former Gov. Bob McDonnell's corruption indictment to change that philosophy for lobbyist gifts, they made no such shift for campaign donations. Considering the way federal reforms drove money into third-party groups that can keep their donors secret, that's probably for the best, said former Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who co-chairs Gov. Terry McAuliffe's ethics reform commission. "We felt it was better, more transparent, to know who was giving what to whom," said Bolling, who as a state senator favored limits. Once the money's in a campaign kitty, politicians can spend it as they wish. Only when they retire does the law prohibit them from using campaign cash for personal expenses.
Daily Press

With a 6-1 vote, Petersburg passed a residency requirement at its Dec. 8 City Council meeting, however, the legality of this motion has come into question.
The motion, brought forth by Vice Mayor Samuel Parham, would require essential and nonessential employees that work for the city of Petersburg to live in the city if they make $80,000 a year or more. City public information officer Jay Ell Alexander said the motion was not legal according to City Attorney Brian Telfair. Virginia Code 15.2-1505 states that no governing body that receives funds from the state “shall condition employment or any feature of employment, including promotion, on the basis of residency in a particular locality.” The code further states that this law does not apply to appointees of elected groups or individuals, officials and employees who serve at the will of an appointed authority, deputies and executive assistants to the chief administrative officers of a locality or department heads and their equivalents in government operations.
Progress-Index

The criminal justice system in Virginia appeared to be on the verge of radical change, at last. In a state where defendants are not entitled to the police reports in their case, the witness statements against them or even a witness list, a prominent committee issued a detailed report late last year proposing to carefully change all that, and more. “Where trial by ambush has been the norm,” committee chair and retired Loudoun Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne wrote, “there is now clarity and transparency.” But in a one-paragraph order issued by the Virginia Supreme Court last month, the entire report was shelved. The court, which empanelled the Special Committee on Criminal Discovery Rules itself in 2013 after nine years of study by prior groups and decades of complaints from the defense bar, “declines to adopt the Committee’s recommendations,” its order read, with no further explanation.
Washington Post

The Alexandria City Council will not give itself a $17,500 raise and the new mayor won’t get a yearly bump of $19,500, after the sponsor of the raise measure pulled the proposal Saturday morning. Council member Paul Smedberg (D) withdrew his bill ,which would have brought Alexandria officials’ salaries closer to those of other locally elected leaders in the region. The mayor’s and council’s pay cannot be raised for another three years now, because elected officials are not allowed to increase their own salary. The incoming council’s term begins next month, and lasts for three years.
Washington Post


National Stories
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The Kentucky Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling that the state Cabinet for Families and Children “improperly and willfully” denied a newspaper’s request for records in a child abuse death and must pay damages. In an order Friday, the appeals court ordered the cabinet to pay the Todd County Standard newspaper nearly $10,000 in attorney fees and more than $6,000 in fines for violating the state Open Records Act.
WDRB

The national census in 2020 will be the first to rely primarily on the Internet for collecting census data, creating new avenues for fraud and disruption. A new report from the JASON scientific advisory panel describes the problem and outlines some solutions. Why would anyone want to interfere with the constitutionally-mandated census, which maps the population of the United States every ten years and serves as the basis for apportioning congressional districts? The JASONs identified a number of reasons.
Secrecy News

When you check movie times on your cellphone, search for a restaurant or hail a ride, the device automatically knows exactly where you are and can suggest things nearby. So it’s understandable that many people assume the same holds true when they call 911 for emergency assistance. But the fact is, 911 call centers frequently receive imprecise locations of callers from wireless carriers -- and some don’t get any location information at all. Calls from landline phones are linked to addresses. But today more than 70 percent of all 911 calls originate from cellphones, a number only expected to increase. More reliable location information could save lives, and earlier this year an order from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set targets for companies to improve both the availability and accuracy of location information. But those upgrades remain a long way off.
Governing