Transparency News 1/5/2017
Thursday, January 5, 2017
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
This bill would make legislative drafting files related to laws enacted beginning with the 1989 Session of the General Assembly are the property of the requester. This is consistent with the treatment of laws enacted prior to 1989 and consistent with legislative privilege accorded to members of the General Assembly. The Division of Legislative Services would release legislative drafting files upon obtaining consent of the requester.
SB969
Disagreements about how best to move forward with an effort to expand career and technical education offerings are causing tension between the Franklin County Board of Supervisors and school officials. In December, a stakeholder committee put together to explain the need and vision for a new center presented its work to the supervisors and asked them to fund a feasibility study. The board determined it wasn’t ready to take that step, and instead said it would like to move forward with a requirements document that would better outline the specific needs of the project. The next day, school officials responded by asking for requirement documents and feasibility studies for other county construction projects. The request specifically mentions The Franklin Center for Advanced Learning and Enterprise, the government center, the new business park and library renovations. Superintendent Mark Church filed the request, made under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, at the request of school board Chairman G.B. Washburn. The request rubbed some supervisors the wrong way, and prompted discussion at a Tuesday organizational meeting about their frustrations with the process and their strained relationship with the school board.
Roanoke Times
Some of America's biggest cable companies are asking the government to throw out rules that have kept them from using and sharing your browsing history, geolocation logs, and even the content of your emails.
Virginian-Pilot
National Stories
Republicans barreled ahead with a plan to fine members who use their phones to broadcast future floor protests, approving rules for the new Congress that codify the penalties despite last-minute objections from Democrats. Before the vote Democrats including Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a leader of the daylong gun-control sit-in over the summer, blasted the proposal as “unprecedented and unconstitutional.”
Politico
If New York gets $2.3 billion for La Guardia Airport, then New Jersey gets $2.3 billion for Newark Liberty International Airport. Want cash for an AirTrain that might not be fiscally sound? You can have $1.5 billion for yours as long as we get $1.5 billion for ours. Call it "the quid pro quo capital plan." As Port Authority commissioners prepare to meet on Thursday to hammer out the agency’s draft capital plan, a confidential document obtained by The Record shows how interstate jealousies over funding are defining how $30 billion will be spent on transportation in the region over the next 10 years. Such horse trading might seem trivial if the fates of millions of daily commuters, traveling by road, rail and air — not to mention thousands of cargo containers that sail in and out of the region’s ports — were not at stake.
The Record
Editorials/Columns
FOR PRACTICAL VALUE, the Portsmouth City Council’s vote Tuesday to strike a silly administrative rule from its books may be negligible. For symbolic effect, however, it is fair to view the decision as harkening a new era at City Hall, one founded on trust and cooperation rather than contempt and division. For too long, municipal government in Portsmouth has viewed with disdain the notion that the people’s business should be conducted in the open. The shroud of secrecy that enveloped City Hall extended to all manner of government action. In the summer of 2015, Portsmouth’s City Council began discussing the future of the Confederate Monument in Olde Towne. It was certain to be an emotional and difficult discussion for the community, but certainly one worth having. Taking great liberty with Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, the council met behind closed doors to debate the monument, a conversation that included the consideration of seeking a court order. What followed was the imposition of a rule whereby the council could impose a $1,500 fine through a majority vote on any member disclosing the contents of a secret meeting. It was the only such measure in Hampton Roads, and laughably unconstitutional. That didn’t stop the council from twice using it to quash dissent.
Virginian-Pilot
In P.R. terms, Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s move to place the Office of Congressional Ethics under legislators’ control was a disaster. The media pounced on the opportunity to make Republicans look bad, suggesting that the GOP was trying to “eviscerate” the panel (and “neuter” it and “gut” it and so on) — all “with no warning.” Democrats piled on. Soon the public was up in arms over the affair, and once Donald Trump weighed in, Republicans cried uncle and reversed themselves. As a practical matter, the whole ruckus amounted to much ado about nothing. Although it was little noted in the coverage, the ethics office is toothless. Institutions such as the Office of Congressional Ethics are show pieces. The real action takes place elsewhere. But show pieces have symbolic value, and symbols matter. That is a lesson the House GOP has just learned anew, and will not soon forget.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Who would have thought that the first person that Donald Trump would smack down in 2017 would be … Rep. Bob Goodlatte? That’s the takeaway from the unexpected kerfluffle this week where House Republicans – led by the Roanoke County congressman – first voted on Monday to restructure the Office of Congressional Ethics and then quickly voted on Tuesday not to. In between those two votes were two events, one which Goodlatte and company should have expected and one they likely didn’t. The first was an onslaught of headlines that House Republicans — with no prior notice, and on a government holiday no less — had voted as their first act of business to “weaken” or even “gut” the ethics office. This was hardly limited to traditional media outlets, which Republicans these days delight in dismissing. Consider this statement from one outraged group in Washington: “It is shameful that House Republicans are trying to destroy the Office of Congressional Ethics, the most significant ethics reform in Congress when it was established nearly a decade ago. This drive-by effort to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics, which provides appropriate independence and transparency to the House ethics process, is a poor way for the Republican majority to begin ‘draining the swamp.’ The American people will see this latest push to undermine congressional ethics enforcement as shady and corrupt.” What hyper-partisan liberal special interest group said that? Umm, none. That was from Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has made a name for itself for digging into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous emails.
Roanoke Times
WHAT in the world was Bob Goodlatte thinking? That’s what a lot of people are wondering after the congressman from Roanoke schemed with other House Republicans to gut their chamber’s independent ethics office, despite objections from their leaders, Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Goodlatte said the changes would “strengthen” the office—pure Orwellian double-speak. The behind-closed-doors change by the House Republican Conference, approved 119–74 by secret ballot without advance notice or public debate, ignited a fierce backlash within hours of its announcement by Goodlatte late Monday night. House members seem to have forgotten why the office was created in the first place—to save them from their own excesses and keep faith with their constituents.
Free Lance-Star
SB969
Disagreements about how best to move forward with an effort to expand career and technical education offerings are causing tension between the Franklin County Board of Supervisors and school officials. In December, a stakeholder committee put together to explain the need and vision for a new center presented its work to the supervisors and asked them to fund a feasibility study. The board determined it wasn’t ready to take that step, and instead said it would like to move forward with a requirements document that would better outline the specific needs of the project. The next day, school officials responded by asking for requirement documents and feasibility studies for other county construction projects. The request specifically mentions The Franklin Center for Advanced Learning and Enterprise, the government center, the new business park and library renovations. Superintendent Mark Church filed the request, made under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, at the request of school board Chairman G.B. Washburn. The request rubbed some supervisors the wrong way, and prompted discussion at a Tuesday organizational meeting about their frustrations with the process and their strained relationship with the school board.
Roanoke Times
Some of America's biggest cable companies are asking the government to throw out rules that have kept them from using and sharing your browsing history, geolocation logs, and even the content of your emails.
Virginian-Pilot
National Stories
Republicans barreled ahead with a plan to fine members who use their phones to broadcast future floor protests, approving rules for the new Congress that codify the penalties despite last-minute objections from Democrats. Before the vote Democrats including Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a leader of the daylong gun-control sit-in over the summer, blasted the proposal as “unprecedented and unconstitutional.”
Politico
If New York gets $2.3 billion for La Guardia Airport, then New Jersey gets $2.3 billion for Newark Liberty International Airport. Want cash for an AirTrain that might not be fiscally sound? You can have $1.5 billion for yours as long as we get $1.5 billion for ours. Call it "the quid pro quo capital plan." As Port Authority commissioners prepare to meet on Thursday to hammer out the agency’s draft capital plan, a confidential document obtained by The Record shows how interstate jealousies over funding are defining how $30 billion will be spent on transportation in the region over the next 10 years. Such horse trading might seem trivial if the fates of millions of daily commuters, traveling by road, rail and air — not to mention thousands of cargo containers that sail in and out of the region’s ports — were not at stake.
The Record
Editorials/Columns
FOR PRACTICAL VALUE, the Portsmouth City Council’s vote Tuesday to strike a silly administrative rule from its books may be negligible. For symbolic effect, however, it is fair to view the decision as harkening a new era at City Hall, one founded on trust and cooperation rather than contempt and division. For too long, municipal government in Portsmouth has viewed with disdain the notion that the people’s business should be conducted in the open. The shroud of secrecy that enveloped City Hall extended to all manner of government action. In the summer of 2015, Portsmouth’s City Council began discussing the future of the Confederate Monument in Olde Towne. It was certain to be an emotional and difficult discussion for the community, but certainly one worth having. Taking great liberty with Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, the council met behind closed doors to debate the monument, a conversation that included the consideration of seeking a court order. What followed was the imposition of a rule whereby the council could impose a $1,500 fine through a majority vote on any member disclosing the contents of a secret meeting. It was the only such measure in Hampton Roads, and laughably unconstitutional. That didn’t stop the council from twice using it to quash dissent.
Virginian-Pilot
In P.R. terms, Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s move to place the Office of Congressional Ethics under legislators’ control was a disaster. The media pounced on the opportunity to make Republicans look bad, suggesting that the GOP was trying to “eviscerate” the panel (and “neuter” it and “gut” it and so on) — all “with no warning.” Democrats piled on. Soon the public was up in arms over the affair, and once Donald Trump weighed in, Republicans cried uncle and reversed themselves. As a practical matter, the whole ruckus amounted to much ado about nothing. Although it was little noted in the coverage, the ethics office is toothless. Institutions such as the Office of Congressional Ethics are show pieces. The real action takes place elsewhere. But show pieces have symbolic value, and symbols matter. That is a lesson the House GOP has just learned anew, and will not soon forget.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Who would have thought that the first person that Donald Trump would smack down in 2017 would be … Rep. Bob Goodlatte? That’s the takeaway from the unexpected kerfluffle this week where House Republicans – led by the Roanoke County congressman – first voted on Monday to restructure the Office of Congressional Ethics and then quickly voted on Tuesday not to. In between those two votes were two events, one which Goodlatte and company should have expected and one they likely didn’t. The first was an onslaught of headlines that House Republicans — with no prior notice, and on a government holiday no less — had voted as their first act of business to “weaken” or even “gut” the ethics office. This was hardly limited to traditional media outlets, which Republicans these days delight in dismissing. Consider this statement from one outraged group in Washington: “It is shameful that House Republicans are trying to destroy the Office of Congressional Ethics, the most significant ethics reform in Congress when it was established nearly a decade ago. This drive-by effort to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics, which provides appropriate independence and transparency to the House ethics process, is a poor way for the Republican majority to begin ‘draining the swamp.’ The American people will see this latest push to undermine congressional ethics enforcement as shady and corrupt.” What hyper-partisan liberal special interest group said that? Umm, none. That was from Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has made a name for itself for digging into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous emails.
Roanoke Times
WHAT in the world was Bob Goodlatte thinking? That’s what a lot of people are wondering after the congressman from Roanoke schemed with other House Republicans to gut their chamber’s independent ethics office, despite objections from their leaders, Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Goodlatte said the changes would “strengthen” the office—pure Orwellian double-speak. The behind-closed-doors change by the House Republican Conference, approved 119–74 by secret ballot without advance notice or public debate, ignited a fierce backlash within hours of its announcement by Goodlatte late Monday night. House members seem to have forgotten why the office was created in the first place—to save them from their own excesses and keep faith with their constituents.
Free Lance-Star
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