Transparency News 2/16/18

HB1. The committee voted to conform the bill to the Senate version, which specifies in FOIA that the scholastic records exemption applies to student phone numbers and personal email addresses. The bill will likely go to a conference committee to work out differences.
HB1473. The committee voted to advance the bill, but first sent it to Senate Finance. Sen. Petersen, who had a similar bill, voted against referring the bill to Finance because that’s where his bill was killed, even though neither bill has a fiscal impact. Read the fiscal impact statement.

Several officials at the Virginia Department of Elections and in the City of Fredericksburg were confused about how Virginia’s district lines were defined in the years leading up to the 2017 election, according to documents obtained by WTOP through the Freedom of Information Act. That confusion likely contributed to 147 people voting in the wrong House of Delegates races Nov. 7. One of those races, along with control of the House, was decided by just 73 votes. The process is complicated, and the lines are not defined on a map but are based on the voting precincts that were in place during the most recent census. Those precinct lines immediately become out of date after any General Assembly redistricting process, since local governments are similarly required to redraw lines based on the new population information. A February 2012 memo from the Division of Legislative Services acknowledged that can be hard to wrap your head around, calling the process “easily misunderstood.” That memo also warned of the challenges if Virginia tried to keep the law or official maps more up to date. “Failure to update annually, or mistakes in making updates, could give rise to serious confusion or challenges with regard to candidacies for office, voter participation, election returns and similar issues,” the memo said.
WTOP

Abingdon Town Attorney Deborah Icenhour, Town Manager Greg Kelly and Town Clerk Cecile Rosenbaum each filed an EEOC complaint in July 2017, Chris Carey, administrator for the Virginia Association of Counties Group Self-Insurance Risk Pool [VACoRP], confirmed to the Bristol Herald Courier on Thursday. The Herald Courier obtained the town’s liability claims from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2017, through the Freedom of Information Act on Jan. 30. The town provided its lost run report, which contained three EEOC complaints filed under the “public officials” claim type. The nature of the three EEOC claims is unknown. At least three or more Town Council members are traveling to Richmond from Monday to Wednesday to attend a closed session meeting at 11 a.m. Tuesday, pursuant to the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, Section 2.2.-3711 (A)(1), which allows public bodies to hold closed meetings when discussing sensitive information that might be related to personnel. It’s not known who or what agency town officials are meeting with.
Bristol Herald-Courier

The Trump administration has agreed to settle a pending lawsuit by making monthly public postings of details on visitors to some parts of the White House, such as the Office of Management and Budget and the drug czar’s office. However, there is no sign the Trump White House plans to reverse its decision to abandon the Obama administration’s policy of releasing information on visitors to the White House’s core offices, including the senior officials in the West Wing. The non-profit group Public Citizen filed suit last August, arguing that the Secret Service had illegally rebuffed requests for visitor logs for White House offices covered by the Freedom of Information Act.
Politico

Earlier this month, defense lawyers claimed Texas was botching its executions with old drugs. Now, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has stalled the release of information on how many lethal doses the state has and when they expire. Without providing a reason, the department told a Texas Tribune reporter last week that it would take an estimated 20 business days — until the day before the state’s next scheduled execution — to provide information on how many lethal doses the state has and when they expire. In the past, the records have been provided in half the time, and even that could be unlawful. The Texas Attorney General’s Office handbook on the state’s public information law says that a governmental body must produce public information promptly, without delay. The handbook says it is a “common misconception” that agencies can wait 10 business days before releasing the information, as the Department of Criminal Justice has regularly done in the past regarding execution drugs.
The Texas Tribune

Here’s a simple two-question quiz most middle-school students in the commonwealth should be able to pass. 1. Should Virginia government be open to public scrutiny? 2. Is the judicial system part of Virginia’s government? The correct answer to both questions is yes. Yet while that’s obvious to most of the Old Dominion, certain Virginia lawmakers have trouble reaching that conclusion. State Sen. Richard Stuart, a Republican who represents Stafford County, for instance, had introduced legislation (SB 727) that would remove the judicial system from the state Freedom of Information Act. Stuart’s bill would not change access to the court records filed in the courthouse—the judgments in civil disputes and the results of criminal cases—but would deal with the administrative records, which would involve payroll issues, the number of employees, the expense accounts of the judges and even their attendance records. Stuart’s bill would have allowed the justices of the Virginia Supreme Court to make the rules on accessing those documents—their own and those for all levels of the state’s court system. Essentially, the bill would have let the judiciary avoid accountability.
The Free Lance-Star