Transparency News 12/30/13
State and Local Stories
HB 219: Adds a record exemption for educational institutions forconfidential letters and statements of recommendationplaced in the records of educational agencies or institutions respecting an application for promotion.
Virginia General Assembly
Three months after members of the Leesburg Town Council spurred controversy by voting to block a member from participating in a meeting by telephone, Del. Randy Minchew (R-10) has introduced legislation to ensure the state’s new remote access policy is uniformly applied. The impetus for the bill is an Oct. 7 Leesburg Town Council work session during which a majority voted to deny the request of Councilmember Kevin Wright to participate in the following night’s meeting via telephone while he was on a business trip in Detroit. During the Oct. 8 meeting, the council was scheduled to take a final vote on a controversial plan to widen sidewalks and reduce on-street parking along King Street downtown. The council was divided on the questions of whether to continue, modify or cancel the project. Wright was a critic of the plan and three members supporting the project voted during the work session to deny his request to cast his vote from a remote location—an action that guaranteed project supporters would have enough votes at the meeting to block any changes to the plan. In response to public criticism overnight, the council members reversed their decision as one of the first action during their Oct. 8 meeting. Wright’s request to participate in the meeting—and vote—by phone was approved unanimously. Council members who changed their vote said their intent was to delay action on the King Street plan until all members could be present, not to prevent Wright from voting. The King Street project ultimately was approved on a 4-3 vote.
Leesburg Today
There's always been a couple of truths about political ethics reforms in Virginia: every politician in the state is in favor of them. And virtually no reforms ever are enacted. So, after a year that saw Gov. Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli embarrassed by reports of tens of thousands of dollars of gifts from a business executive whose company was battling a state tax assessment and hoping for help launching a new product, ethics is again a Capitol Square talking point. And, says University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, "Here's an easy prediction — we'll all be tut-tutting about how little the General Assembly did to reform the gift laws come March."
Daily Press
Tidewater Community College has just finished the first semester of a pilot program that allows students to complete a two-year associate degree in business administration without buying a single textbook. The “Z Degree” program – “Z” for zero textbook cost – makes use of free, openly licensed online materials known as open educational resources, or OER. It’s estimated that students will save as much as $3,000 over two years – about 30 percent of the cost of the degree. It’s the first such program in the world, according to TCC and its partner, Lumen Learning, a Portland, Ore.-based company that helps schools integrate OER into their curricula.
Virginian-Pilot
It was a year that saw one of the tightest races in recent memory, a shadow on a reputation for political probity and a break from a 40-year pattern of voting for a governor of a different party than the winner of a presidential election. But 2013 was also a year of tradition in Virginia politics. "It was an affirmation of the Virginia Way," said political scientist Tom Morris, former president of Emory & Henry College. "The candidate who had the most moderate stance and who talked the most about bipartisanship was the winner."
Daily Press
National Stories
The National Security Agency's practice of collecting information about all telephone calls placed in, to and from the United States is lawful despite the potential civil liberties abuses inherent in such a "metadata" bank, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled Friday. Southern District Judge William Pauley III concluded in American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper, 13 Civ. 3994, that the NSA's telephony metadata program is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, given the "horrific" consequences of international terrorism as demonstrated on Sept. 11, 2001.New York Law Journal
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has refused to allow the sealing of settlement agreements in two civil actions, citing the “presumption of public access to judicial records.” Regarding one of the cases, Judge Richard Posner wrote, the information is important to future negotiations over attorneys’ fees in cases in which the plaintiff is a minor. “[N]o good reason—in fact no reason at all—has been given for thinking that concealment of the information would serve some social purpose,” he wrote.
National Law Journal
ALEC has denied being the source of Florida’s stand your ground law and says it has no model policy today bearing resemblance to it. But the group says its practice of keeping draft bills secret has allowed opponents to pin the organization unfairly to such measures. So now, ALEC’s leaders say they are putting in place a key change that will make sure that never happens again. As part of what it calls a move toward more transparency, the group has decided to post online all the “model legislation” it develops so that lawmakers, the public and the press will be able to see exactly where ALEC stands.
Politico
Connecticut state police released a trove of documents and video on Friday tied to their investigation of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School last year that killed 20 children and six adults. The documents include footage of the school facade, including close-up images of bullet-shattered windows, and a video tour through the cheerfully decorated home the shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shared with his mother, Nancy Lanza.
Reuters
Editorials/Columns
Daily Press endorsement in Sen. 6th District: “Government also works best when it is transparent, and we do harbor a serious concern about Del. Lewis record on that front. In 2011, he introduced a bill that could have narrowed the scope of Virginia's Freedom of Information Act. When asked about that law, he claimed a lack of familiarity. That is deeply troublesome, both that he would propose such a bill and that he would be less than forthright when questioned. We expect that, if elected, he should be a champion of public access and the people's right to know. Anything less is unacceptable.” (The paper nonetheless endorses Lewis.)Times-Dispatch: Newspapers have an institutional interest in robust freedom-of-information laws. But even if they didn’t, we still would be cheering state Sen. Chap Petersen’s latest proposal: to bring the General Assembly under the Virginia FOIA’s scope. At present, the assembly is largely exempt from a law that covers most other governmental bodies. “I never liked that exemption and never understood it,” Petersen says. “We need a culture change in Richmond.” Amen to that.
Dick Hammerstrom, Free Lance-Star: In two Virginia localities last week, school boards made decisions on school superintendents that may determine the quality of education in those areas for the foreseeable future. But the two school boards-—in Richmond and Stafford County—-took different approaches to the process. In Richmond, parents, teachers and school administrators had a chance to meet the three finalists for the job and hear their responses to the public’s questions. In Stafford, it appears that only the school board members met and questioned the finalists for the job.The board never acknowledged who the finalists were and the other educational stakeholders in the county remained unaware until the new superintendent was introduced.
Hartford Courant: Open government — a democratic idea hopefully still prized in Connecticut — has taken a devastating hit here in the past three years. Government accountability has been threatened by the powerful, shaking the public's trust. A top item in The Courant's agenda for the new year is to stop the attacks on good-government principles by the governor and General Assembly.
