Transparency News 12/29/16
Wednesday, December 29, 2016
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
The two bills to come out of the FOIA Council’s 3-year study have been filed and are on our annual legislative bill chart. Bookmark this page and check back for updates or to sign up for our Sunshine Caucus.
Forty-one states broadcast audio or video from at least some of their legislature's committee meetings. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands stream them as well, according to an April breakdown from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Virginia, birthplace of modern American democracy, does not. It streams floor sessions, though it does not archive them online, meaning they're only broadcast once, then available for purchase on DVD. Not a single legislative committee meeting, where much of the real work takes place, is broadcast by the state.
Daily Press
Seventeen area pharmacies have violated the law since 2010, with mistakes ranging from keeping sloppy records to not having the proper environment for compounding life-sustaining medicine, a News Leader investigation of state records shows. If you walked into one of those pharmacies in the months after they failed inspection, you had no way of knowing your pharmacy or pharmacist had been cited, even though the state’s Board of Pharmacy knew. That’s because the information is not made public when you need it, and it’s not available where you most often come into contact with the world of medicine — at your local pharmacy itself. The News Leader spent four months examining hundreds of pages of public state inspection orders published from January 2010 to November 2016, focusing on ones involving Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County. We also reviewed all orders from 2016 across Virginia, in order to inform our reporting with context and understand how the state handles discipline.
News Leader
The “Secret Ops of the CIA” calendar was created by the nephew of an agency contractor killed in the line of duty. But it’s not available at Langley.
Washington Post
National Stories
In a victory for open government, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police investigation records are public documents once a suspect’s criminal trial concludes. The court ruled 5-1 that most of the records sought by the Ohio Innocence Project from Columbus police since 2013 must be turned over. The decision will likely reverse a practice by police departments across Ohio to withhold investigative records until all potential proceedings are exhausted or the defendant dies.
Dayton Daily News
Two bills filed this month in the South Carolina General Assembly would lessen the time and cost associated with challenging denials of public records requests. The measures introduced by Sen. Chip Campsen and Reps. Weston Newton and Bill Taylor call for state administrative hearing officers to preside over disputes regarding requests made under South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act.
Independent Mail
Online petitions are all over the place. Some are political (like one asking members of the Electoral College to vote for Hillary Clinton as president instead of Donald J. Trump); others are unearthly (like one asking that “Star Wars: The Old Republic” series be shown on Netflix). That first petition drew 4.9 million signatures on Change.org. Nonetheless, members of the Electoral College voted for Mr. Trump on Dec. 19. The second petition drew over 123,000 names. There has been a proliferation of these petitions — Change.org has more than 100 million users in 196 countries — but are they effective? Do the intended recipients, often policy makers or elected leaders, pay attention? That a petition did not produce the desired outcome does not mean it failed, says A.J. Walton, a spokesman for the online petition forum. The biggest benefit from a petition is raised awareness, Jason Del Gandio, a professor of communications and social movements at Temple University in Philadelphia, said in an interview. “In some ways it’s just the updated version of the letter-writing campaign to a representative that has been going on for years,” he said.
New York Times
Editorials/Columns
There is no shortage of incongruity surrounding the debate over how to treat controversial books in Virginia’s public schools. The state’s Department of Education has proposed a new rule that would require districts to notify parents about sexually explicit works and allow students to study different works instead. The proposal resembles the so-called “Beloved” bill, passed by the General Assembly in its most recent session but vetoed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Such proposals enjoy the backing of conservative Republicans — who generally can be counted on to make fun of “trigger warnings” on college campuses and who usually favor local control instead of mandates from the state or federal government. Liberal Democrats — who usually distrust local control — argue in this case for the greater wisdom of the officials closest to the people. Incongruities aside, the issue is complicated. Both sides make good points.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Forty-one states broadcast audio or video from at least some of their legislature's committee meetings. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands stream them as well, according to an April breakdown from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Virginia, birthplace of modern American democracy, does not. It streams floor sessions, though it does not archive them online, meaning they're only broadcast once, then available for purchase on DVD. Not a single legislative committee meeting, where much of the real work takes place, is broadcast by the state.
Daily Press
Seventeen area pharmacies have violated the law since 2010, with mistakes ranging from keeping sloppy records to not having the proper environment for compounding life-sustaining medicine, a News Leader investigation of state records shows. If you walked into one of those pharmacies in the months after they failed inspection, you had no way of knowing your pharmacy or pharmacist had been cited, even though the state’s Board of Pharmacy knew. That’s because the information is not made public when you need it, and it’s not available where you most often come into contact with the world of medicine — at your local pharmacy itself. The News Leader spent four months examining hundreds of pages of public state inspection orders published from January 2010 to November 2016, focusing on ones involving Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County. We also reviewed all orders from 2016 across Virginia, in order to inform our reporting with context and understand how the state handles discipline.
News Leader
The “Secret Ops of the CIA” calendar was created by the nephew of an agency contractor killed in the line of duty. But it’s not available at Langley.
Washington Post
National Stories
In a victory for open government, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police investigation records are public documents once a suspect’s criminal trial concludes. The court ruled 5-1 that most of the records sought by the Ohio Innocence Project from Columbus police since 2013 must be turned over. The decision will likely reverse a practice by police departments across Ohio to withhold investigative records until all potential proceedings are exhausted or the defendant dies.
Dayton Daily News
Two bills filed this month in the South Carolina General Assembly would lessen the time and cost associated with challenging denials of public records requests. The measures introduced by Sen. Chip Campsen and Reps. Weston Newton and Bill Taylor call for state administrative hearing officers to preside over disputes regarding requests made under South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act.
Independent Mail
Online petitions are all over the place. Some are political (like one asking members of the Electoral College to vote for Hillary Clinton as president instead of Donald J. Trump); others are unearthly (like one asking that “Star Wars: The Old Republic” series be shown on Netflix). That first petition drew 4.9 million signatures on Change.org. Nonetheless, members of the Electoral College voted for Mr. Trump on Dec. 19. The second petition drew over 123,000 names. There has been a proliferation of these petitions — Change.org has more than 100 million users in 196 countries — but are they effective? Do the intended recipients, often policy makers or elected leaders, pay attention? That a petition did not produce the desired outcome does not mean it failed, says A.J. Walton, a spokesman for the online petition forum. The biggest benefit from a petition is raised awareness, Jason Del Gandio, a professor of communications and social movements at Temple University in Philadelphia, said in an interview. “In some ways it’s just the updated version of the letter-writing campaign to a representative that has been going on for years,” he said.
New York Times
Editorials/Columns
There is no shortage of incongruity surrounding the debate over how to treat controversial books in Virginia’s public schools. The state’s Department of Education has proposed a new rule that would require districts to notify parents about sexually explicit works and allow students to study different works instead. The proposal resembles the so-called “Beloved” bill, passed by the General Assembly in its most recent session but vetoed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Such proposals enjoy the backing of conservative Republicans — who generally can be counted on to make fun of “trigger warnings” on college campuses and who usually favor local control instead of mandates from the state or federal government. Liberal Democrats — who usually distrust local control — argue in this case for the greater wisdom of the officials closest to the people. Incongruities aside, the issue is complicated. Both sides make good points.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
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