Transparency News 12/23/14

Tuesday, December 23, 2014
 
Transparency News will be offline until Dec. 29. Wishing you all a safe, joyous and sunny holiday.


State and Local Stories

Gov. Terry McAuliffe's ethics advisory panel is endorsing the creation of an independent commission to redraw legislative district lines without regard to partisan politics. Right now, state lawmakers draw the districts, and convincing legislators there's a better way won't be easy. The ethics panel, which met Monday, is "not naive enough to think that whatever we recommend is going to be enthusiastically received by members of the General Assembly," said former Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a co-chairman. "But it is an issue that we need to keep front and center."
Virginian-Pilot

Attorneys for the ACLU of Virginia in the Pittsylvania County prayer case plan to seek more money for the cost of their work during the county’s appeal of an injunction banning supervisor-led sectarian invocations. The county lost its appeal Wednesday in the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because it filed it too late. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski had issued an injunction against the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors in March 2013 ordering it to cease their practice of leading Christian prayers at the start of their meetings.
Register & Bee

A Fairfax County Circuit Court judge on Monday ordered county police to provide vast portions of their investigation into the police shooting death of an unarmed Springfield man to the attorneys for the man’s family, including the officer’s name, which had been previously undisclosed. Just three days after a hearing on the Geer family’s request for information in their civil suit against Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., Judge Randy I. Bellows issued a 12-page ruling that threatens to end nearly 16 months of silence by Fairfax authorities concerning the death of John Geer. The judge did so, in large part, by noting that the case is now being handled by federal authorities, who did not object to any of the Geer family’s requests and who expressly stated publicly that they had not instructed Fairfax to refrain from disclosing information about the case. The judge’s order redacts the home addresses, phone numbers and identifying data of the law enforcement and civilian witnesses. Fairfax said it would comply with the order, according to county spokesman Tony Castrilli, and not appeal to a higher court. Bellows gave Fairfax 30 days to produce the documents and records requested. Bellows ruled that any documents created after Jan. 7, when the case went from Fairfax to the Justice Department, could be withheld, because they were part of the federal investigation. He also ruled that documents created since Fairfax police launched their internal affairs investigation, sometime after Sept. 2 when the suit was filed, also could be withheld, but that documents before that time “are not part of the internal administrative investigation.”
Washington Post

Hampton has budgeted $44,725 in fiscal year 2015 to coordinate the records it produces. The money is used to organize and track city records by "improving the timeliness and accessibility of information to City Council, citizens and city staff," according to the budget. Staff manages agendas, publications and codes legislative action taken by the City Council so those documents can be recalled whenever needed. This expense doesn't include Freedom of Information Act requests, which are budgeted until the City Attorney's Office.
Daily Press

National Stories

Tulsa World reporter and Enterprise Editor Ziva Branstetter and her newspaper have filed suit against the state of Oklahoma seeking access to witness interviews, state officials’ email, and other records regarding the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in April 2014. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Litigation Director Katie Townsend and Oklahoma City attorney Robert D. Nelon of Hall Estill are representing the plaintiffs pro bono. During Lockett’s execution, which Branstetter was covering for the Tulsa World, Lockett’s veins reportedly “exploded” after receiving the lethal injection, and he died from a heart attack after the procedure was halted. The execution of another inmate, Charles Warner, which was also planned for that evening, was delayed until Jan. 15, 2015. Branstetter filed several requests under Oklahoma’s Open Records Act seeking, among other things, the transcripts of witness interviews conducted as part of the investigation into what happened during Lockett’s execution, and for emails between state officials discussing the issue. For some seven months, Branstetter’s efforts to obtain the records from the office of Gov. Mary Fallin and the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety have been stymied.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

More freedom of information lawsuits were brought against the federal government in fiscal year 2014 than in any year since at least 2001, according to a new analysis of court records by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). A total of 422 Freedom of Information Act suits were filed in federal district court last year compared with 372 in FY 2013 and 387 in FY 2005, the next highest year since 2001. The Justice Department and its sub-organizations were the most frequently sued federal entities in 2014, while the conservative research organization Judicial Watch brought the most suits. In fact, Judicial Watch filed more lawsuits last year than every news organization combined.
The FOIA Project

Police reformers say the cameras ensure transparency when it comes to officer conduct. But as departments are pressured to release vast stores of videos, privacy concerns are raised. Last week Seattle police held what they called a hack-a-thon. They're hoping that one of the participants willinvent a software tool for them that will speed up the redaction and release of police videos.
NPR

 

Editorials/Columns

A few weeks ago, we had reason to commend Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring for reining in a local government. Virginia Beach wanted to regulate bicycle billboards, and Herring pointed out that the city cannot use its zoning and land-use power to do so. In another recent opinion, the AG has defended an even more fundamental principle: free speech. Last year, Isle of Wight imposed a drastically higher fee for anyone who wanted to set up a booth at the county fair for politicking: $750, as opposed to a mere $25 for anyone else. This year, the county banned political booths entirely. Other vendors had complained about a loss of business, and some fairgoers did not like being accosted. In a recent letter, Herring explained that the county government cannot single out some types of speech for discriminatory treatment or outright censorship. A blanket prohibition on political booths is blatantly unconstitutional, and a higher fee is permissible only if it meets a compelling governmental interest, and is narrowly tailored to meet that interest. Isle of Wight’s fee fails to meet both those tests: “A speculative fear of disruption,” Herring explains, “or mere desire to avoid discomfort generally is not a compelling state interest.”
Times-Dispatch

On election day earlier this year, there were some alarming reports of voting problems.
Some voters in the 2nd Congressional District, using touch-screen machines, reported that when they tapped the screen for one candidate, it registered a vote for the other candidate. Overall, problems with voting equipment were reported in 49 localities. That’s why Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s proposal for the state to pay for new voting machines for 2,166 precincts is a good idea. It’s a pricey idea, to be sure—the price tag announced by McAuliffe’s office rings in at $28 million. That’s not chump change. But the reliability of elections is critical. Voter participation in elections is already dismal. Think how much further it might sink if the actual process of voting becomes untrustworthy. It’s important that voting machines correctly record each vote. That is, after all, their only purpose.
Free Lance-Star