Transparency News 2/12/14

By a 98-1 vote, the House of Delegates on Tuesday passed sweeping ethics reform legislation hours before the crossover deadline, when the House and the Senate must complete work on their bills so they can move to the other chamber. The 73-page bipartisan proposal, aimed at tightening Virginia’s lax laws and providing a reporting framework for state officials and employees, is now headed to the Senate, which passed an almost identical measure Monday on a 39-1 vote.
Times-Dispatch

The Portsmouth City Council removed the chairman of its Historic Preservation Commission Tuesday night because he identified himself as the commission chair while testifying on behalf of his father at a court trial for code violations. The council voted 6-0 to remove Tony Goodwin, who has served on the commission for three years and has been the chairman for at least two. Goodwin said he did nothing wrong in how he identified himself in his father's Feb. 5 trial, which was continued for 90 days. "I'm a citizen," Goodwin said. "I have a right to stand up for someone – no matter who it is."
Virginian-Pilot

North Carolina's anti-abortion license plate is unconstitutional because the state doesn't provide the same forum for motorists on the other side of the contentious issue, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. A three-judge panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a federal judge's ruling that the "Choose Life" license plate is unconstitutional.
Fox News
Full Text of opinion

The Virginia Supreme Court has assigned retired Arlington County judge Paul Sheridan to hear the recall attempt against Loudoun County Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio, according to court documents. Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Burke F. McCahill earlier this month requested a recusal for himself and the other local Circuit Court judges from the case brought against the four-term supervisor by more than 600 petitioners in his district.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
http://www.loudountimes.com/news/articl

National Stories

As politicians put on the pressure, Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler says he’s about to reveal his plan for keeping the Internet open for everyone. During a speech at the University of Colorado Law School, Wheeler said that the FCC, which suffered a legal defeat last month when a federal appeals court threw out its Open Internet rules, is working on a plan that will re-instate Net neutrality protections.
CNET News

Connecticut ranks first among the states for its use of fiscal planning tools, according to a recently-released report from a D.C. think tank. Under the state budgeting process, lawmakers set multi-year projections, ask a non-partisan agency to analyze the fiscal impact of legislation and put money into a “rainy day fund” that can be tapped in budget emergencies – all effective tools in long-term budget planning, according to the report from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Hartford Courant

A legislative committee wants to hear about a document-shredding scandal from Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention officials, but none of the officials invited to testify has agreed to do so. It was unclear Monday whether the Government Oversight Committee would exercise its power to subpoena the officials at the heart of the scandal in an effort to compel them to testify.
Bangor Daily News

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that U.S. government attempts to gather information from an Oregon state database of prescription drug records violates constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the decision, in a case originally brought by the state of Oregon, as the first time a federal judge has ruled that patients have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their prescription records.
Reuters

The publisher of marijuana magazine High Times has sued the state of Colorado in federal court over the state's rules preventing recreational cannabis businesses from advertising in most publications. High Times, along with local weekly magazine Westword, filed the lawsuit on Monday. It marks the first time anyone has challenged the restrictions in court.
The Denver Post
 

Editorials/Columns

Virginian-Pilot: The concerns expressed this week in the statehouse about efforts to tighten Virginia's porous ethics rules offered a legislator's perspective on the proposals' real flaws. There was Sen. Dick Saslaw, the Democratic leader from Fairfax, eviscerating the Senate's proposal, which he co-sponsored, as inadequate and ineffective. He voted for it minutes after he and other senators killed an amendment to ban lawmakers from accepting plane tickets or rides on corporate jets for trips unrelated to work in the legislature. Sen. John Watkins, a Republican from Powhatan County, cast the chamber's lone "no" vote. He blamed the news media for spurring the current efforts and lamented the codification of "tripwires" that, he said, could ensnare lawmakers. "You're talking about us, folks!" he cried.