Transparency News 12/15/14
State and Local Stories
A flamboyant Virginia legislator who made a recent plea in a teen sex case said he will wait to decide on his political future. Del. Joseph Dee Morrissey, D-Henrico, spoke after attending church services Sunday in Richmond. Morrissey said he was "disappointed" that Gov. Terry McAuliffe and other legislative leaders urged him to resign, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Morrissey entered an Alford plea Friday to a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In an Alford plea, a defendant acknowledges there's sufficient evidence for a conviction but doesn't admit guilt.
Virginian-Pilot
Federal prosecutors will not pursue criminal charges in the resignation of a state senatorwho quit amid job talks, quietly closing an episode that further tarnished Virginia’s proud reputation for clean government. In a letter sent Friday declaring that the six-month Puckett investigation would result in no charges, federal prosecutors closed the matter legally but also revealed for the first time that McAuliffe’s chief of staff had been drawn into the probe. Timothy J. Heaphy, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, addressed the letter to four people who had been interviewed in the course of the investigation, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. The four were Paul Reagan, McAuliffe’s chief of staff; and attorneys for Puckett, Puckett’s son, Joseph, and Del. Terry G. Kilgore (R-Scott).
Washington Post
Frustrations spilled over last month when dozens of people who wanted to speak before the Virginia Beach City Council couldn't fit into its 36-year-old meeting space. The chamber's roughly 145 seats filled up fast the night of Nov. 18, causing a crowd to gather in the entryway and hallways outside. An assistant fire marshal ordered anyone without a seat to leave. Many refused. Others walked away without being heard by the council, even after driving from as far away as Portsmouth. The scene raised questions about whether the city has outgrown its primary meeting space. Virginia Beach has the smallest council chambers in South Hampton Roads, despite being the largest city.
Virginian-Pilot
Martinsville area commonwealth’s attorneys Clay Gravely and Andrew Nester said that they do not send a case before a grand jury unless they feel it is a strong one. “Our office has a long-standing reputation that when we ask for charges to be issued, we believe in the case, and we believe that we have a good case,” said Nester, the prosecutor for Henry County. “We don’t just say, ‘Let’s charge them and see what happens.’” Grand juries have been making national headlines recently in light of grand jury decisions in New York and Missouri not to indict police officers charged with killing unarmed men. While Gravely, the city’s prosecutor, and Nester could not speak specifically to those cases or the codes of law in states other than Virginia, they could explain how grand juries function and why they are used in the commonwealth.
Martinsville Bulletin
Verizon has worked with the Virginia Information Technologies Agency to upgrade phone passwords at state agencies that use the Verizon Hosted IP Centrex phone service after someone apparently hacked into the system in August and made unauthorized calls. On Aug. 3, Verizon notified VITA of 26 suspect phone calls that totaled 73 minutes of use were made on Aug. 1 between 9 and 11:42 p.m., said Janice Akers of VITA.
Times-Dispatch
In an era of increased scrutiny of politicians' personal behavior, adding enforcement measures to the Culpeper Town Council Code of Ethics proved to be a contentious process. Following a lengthy discussion, various disagreements and several motions to change amendments to the ethics code first adopted in 2012, Culpeper Town Council voted 7-2 Tuesday night to add penalties for violators among its own membership including reprimand, formal censure and loss of seniority or committee assignment. A main supporter of the ethics code and adding teeth to it, Councilman Dave Lochridge said the document provides visible guidelines to the public for the current council and in the future. "It's to show citizens we are accountable for our actions, not just inside these chambers, but outside as well," he said. Council members Pranas Rimeikis and Meaghan Taylor voted against adoption of the sanctions and the amended code requiring the elected body to: 1) act in the public interest; 2) demonstrate conduct above reproach while avoiding an appearance of impropriety; 3) respect and comply with rules of procedure; 4) communicate relevant information received from outside sources with council members; 5) reject gifts or favors; 6) not publicly disclose information shared in closed sessions; 7) not use public resources for private gain; 8) not interfere with the town's administrative functions; 9) not attempt to influence the outcome of town boards and commission and 10) support a positive work environment.
Star-Exponent
National Stories
Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who is considering a run for president, said in an interview aired this weekend that he’s going to release about 250,000 emails from his time in office. The move seems designed to get ahead of opposition researchers poring through his time in office — the Democratic research super PAC American Bridge already has started digging in on the candidates — but also to contrast Bush with people like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, both of whom have been accused of creating a fog of secrecy in their government offices. Unlike the records of Christie and Clinton, Bush’s document trove is fairly dated — he was in office from 1999 to 2007. But the idea, he told WPLG-TV in Miami, is to create “transparency.” Bush was known as an active emailer while in office, often responding to queries himself.Politico
When alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht’s trial begins in less than a month, he’ll face charges of narcotics conspiracy, money laundering, and computer fraud—not murder. But the specter of violence is creeping into Ulbricht’s trial nonetheless. The prosecution and judge in his case have now refused to let him know which witnesses will be testifying against him for fear that he might orchestrate their killing from his jail cell. In response to a request from prosecutors, New York district court judge Katherine Forrest has allowed prosecutors to keep a list of their witnesses in Ulbricht’s case secret until January 2, the Friday just before his trial begins on the following Monday morning. Her ruling followed a request from prosecutors to redact certain names from the full list to reduce the risk of “harm and intimidation.” They cited the FBI’s account that Ulbricht paid for the murders of six people, including at least one employee who he feared would inform on him to law enforcement.
Wired
Even as President Obama denounces the “enhanced interrogation” employed by the CIA and outlined in a scathing Senate report, his administration continues blocking the release of some 2,100 photographs taken in Iraq and Afghanistan depicting alleged torture. Today, Justice Department attorneys will present to federal judge Alvin Hellerstein the government’s reasons for withholding the photos. The Abu Ghraib images that surfaced in 2004 are but a fraction of the trove, and the Obama administration has since 2009 argued that releasing them would inflame anti-American sentiment abroad and place Americans at risk.
Wired
More than two years of work by open government advocates collapsed on Thursday night when House Speaker John Boehner closed the final legislative session of the 113th Congress without bringing the FOIA Improvement Act of 2014 to a vote. Similar legislation passed the House with a vote of 410-0 earlier this year, and the Improvement Act was given unanimous consent in the Senate on Monday, so it is safe to say that if the bill had come to the floor it would now be on its way to the President’s desk. Amy Bennett is the assistant director of OpenTheGovernment.org, which since 2011 has helped build a coalition of pro-transparency groups and lawmakers dedicated to improving FOIA. She expressed frustration at Boehner’s refusal to acknowledge the momentum behind the bill. “It feels a little 11th hour,” she said. But even more frustrating to advocates fighting to push the bill through its final stages was an almost complete lack of interest from the major publications most likely to benefit from better freedom of information laws. When US Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) almost killed the bill singlehandedly in the face of otherwise unanimous support earlier this week, it didn’t garner more than an eyebrow raise from the media.
Columbia Journalism Review
Editorials/Columns
Virginian-Pilot
Jefferson’s university is cast in darkness. That has to do with far more than the splintered tale of a woman named Jackie being raped by seven men at a fraternity house. That story, unleashed online Nov. 19 by Rolling Stone, systematically has been dismantled. We might never know what actually happened. But there are other more important things we must know. We must know what University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan knew about the allegations, when she knew it and how she responded. We must see, once it is completed, an independent counsel’s review of the claims and the school’s sexual assault policies. We must know the scope of sexual violence claims at the university. These things matter. They would provide insight into the president’s leadership in advance of a crisis. They would inform us further about the university’s handling of sexual assault claims, which already are the subject of a federal investigation of UVa and 85 other schools. But Ms. Sullivan and the university refuse to answer questions or provide relevant records about these critical issues. Following her arrival several years ago, the school’s first female president passed on to administrators what she called Sullivan’s laws. One said: “Don’t hide bad news; meet it head on.” She is hiding now. And Jefferson’s university suffers for it.
Daily Progress
In politics, silence implies consent. In sexual assault cases, silence does not imply consent. Only consent is consent. Whichever way you want to look at it, we do not consent, and we will not be silent about the latest turn of events in the sordid mess involving the University of Virginia and Rolling Stone magazine’s now infamous story about an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house there. We also wish the University of Virginia wouldn’t be so silent. We understand the legalities, we understand privacy laws. Those rightly preclude saying some things — but they don’t preclude everything. One big question now is what will become of the report that the independent counsel — this time an independent counsel that the attorney general arranged. Will it be made public? Herring’s office sends that question to the university’s governing board; the board rector hasn’t responded; Sullivan has said it’s “premature” to say. No, it’s not premature. Now would be exactly the right time for the university to promise that yes, the report will be made public, no matter what it says. Redact whatever names you need to redact to protect the names of victims, absolutely. But what we’re really talking about here is the classic Watergate question: What did the university know and when did it know it? And then, of course: What, if anything, did it do about it? Keeping the report private only feeds suspicion of a cover-up.
Roanoke Times
Virginia’s ethics debate is becoming a bidding war. But it’s a distraction from a subject legislators don’t want to talk about: how some of them have been padding their salaries for years. Virginia’s part-time legislators are paid $18,000 a year. Their salary hasn’t changed much for nearly three decades. Delegates took a symbolic 2 percent pay cut in 1990 because of a recession, trimming their wages to $17,640. They never restored their full salary. A good case could be made for a legislative pay raise. In addition to their salaries, legislators receive $15,000 a year for office expenses. They don’t have to use it for that. Because the money is paid to them directly and is taxed as income, lawmakers can put it in their pocket, spending it as they please. In effect, these legislators are taking it as salary. That means those who do — and apparently there are a bunch — are being paid $33,000, not $18,000.
Jeff Schapiro, Times-Dispatch
Much of the government’s work happens in open meetings because laws have forced more of the government’s business out into the open. While they must obey the letter of the law, the spirit of the law sometimes takes a beating. On the fourth floor of Danville’s Municipal Building, the city government has two meeting rooms — the city council chambers and a work session room. The televised City Council meetings are held in the council chambers, but once that meeting is over, the members of Danville City Council head across the hall to the work session room — where there are no cameras. Both meetings are open to the public, but only the official meetings — not the work sessions — are held before the cameras. In that way, a member of Danville City Council can say with a straight face all of the meetings are televised. We call on the Electric Services Assessment Steering Committee to get out of the Municipal Building — and hold its meetings throughout the community at a time when it’s convenient for the vast majority of the people who will be affected by their work.
Register & Bee
