Transparency News 3/14/16

State and Local Stories

To celebrate Sunshine Week, I’ll be hosting some FOIA chats through Google Hangouts. 

This is the first time I’ve tried these with a public audience, so there may be some kinks to iron out, but we’ll give it a go and see what happens!

Our first one is an update on the 2016 legislative session.What passed? What should have passed? What didn’t pass? What will be studied further? 

Join us today from 2-3 p.m. by clicking on the link below and joining the Hangout (with or without video).
https://hangouts.google.com/call/5uu3boenyzf37h6bhquqk7lhsie

Lawmakers in every state have adopted laws requiring most government meetings and records to be open to the public. But in some states, lawmakers have exempted themselves from complying. The Associated Press sent open-records request to the top lawmakers in all 50 states and most governors, seeking copies of their daily schedules and emails from the government accounts for the week of Feb. 1-7. The AP received more denials than approvals from lawmakers. It did not generally request emails from private accounts because rules and practices on those vary widely from state to state. Summaries showing how they responded in each state: VIRGINIA’s public records law grants elected officials broad discretion in what they can withhold, including any correspondence or records related to "personal or deliberative use." Gov. Terry McAuliffe and the top Democrats and Republicans in both the House and the Senate all declined to provide emails The Associated Press requested. The governor and Democratic legislative leaders provided their calendars. Republican Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment also provided calendars, but it showed only floor sessions and committee and caucus meetings — not any private meetings or events. Republican House Speaker William J. Howell said the request for a week's worth of his calendar was too vague to qualify as a legitimate public records request.
Las Vegas Sun

Many of the most dangerous crimes committed in Hampton Roads go unpunished, a Daily Press analysis of court records and Virginia State Police crime incident data has found. Thousands of reported incidents of homicide, assault with weapons and robbery never make it to a judge or jury for a decision. Thousands of cases are dropped, dismissed for insufficient evidence or disposed of in a plea deal that includes no prison term. The crime incident data was compiled from 10 years' worth of annual Virginia State Police reports. The court records are contained in a database of case status reports that the state court system and most of Virginia's circuit court clerks have refused to release. The Daily Press obtained those records — nearly 474,000 case status reports covering a 10-year period across Hampton Roads — with the assistance of an independent computer engineer. The cases analyzed by the Daily Press were compiled from the website of the Virginia Supreme Court Office of the Executive Secretary by open government advocate and computer engineer Ben Schoenfeld, after the office refused to release its database.
Daily Press

In three decades of following legislation dealing with press and public-records issues, 2016 stood out for Ginger Stanley, the retiring executive director of the Virginia Press Association, which tracked 90 bills during the General Assembly session. “This is the largest number of bills that we’ve seen in 30 years that deal with the public’s right to know,” she said. “Far more were trying to limit and restrict the ability of citizens to see what the government is doing for them or contemplating doing for them.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch

If citizens want to know what their government is up to, they simply have to ask.
The Virginia Freedom of Information Act gives them access to many of a public body’s internal documents — but sometimes, it comes at a cost. The state law reads: “A public body may make reasonable charges not to exceed its actual cost incurred in accessing, duplicating, supplying, or searching for the requested records.” But one word in that statute can be problematic: reasonable. It’s a vague term, holding different meaning for different people. Sometimes what a public body deems reasonable, a requester deems as excessive. “Cost prohibitive is a relative term,” said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. She’s seen situations in which a requester said the cost is so high that it is “effectively denying” the request, but then seen others pay the same amount without batting an eye. Stan Barnhill, an attorney who has represented media outlets — including The Roanoke Times — in matters related to the First Amendment and the Freedom of Information Act, said he believes a public body should charge only for the actual costs it incurs, which does not necessarily mean labor.
Roanoke Times

Petersburg is investigating reports that its chief spokesperson tried to use a work-related travel voucher to take a personal trip. According to Petersburg's interim chief operating officer, Dironna Moore Belton, the reports about public information officer Jay Ell Alexander “at this time are just an accusation.” “We are investigating to see, one, is the accusation true, and then to take any action that is necessary,” she said. “We received it as an accusation of wrongdoing by city personnel and are following procedure on that.” Citing unnamed sources, WWBT-TV reported that Alexander received the voucher from Top Run Race Management, a racing promoter with offices in Fayetteville, N.C., and Miami Beach, to evaluate the company's work. Top Run is the prospective promoter and manager of the Petersburg Half Marathon and 5K. But according to emails obtained by WWBT and WTVR-TV, Top Run CEO Jason A. Miller learned from the company's air travel partner, JetBlue, that Alexander used the voucher to book a flight to Jamaica.
Progress-Index


National Stories
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North Carolina can issue specialty license plates with an anti-abortion slogan but reject alternatives supporting abortion rights without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution, a federal appeals court said on Thursday in reversing its earlier opinion. The 2-1 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals clears the way for the state to offer the "Choose Life" plate approved by its Republican-led legislature in 2011. The appeals court previously had blocked the anti-abortion plate, ruling the state's refusal to also offer a plate with an abortion rights slogan such as "Respect Choice" constituted "viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment."
Reuters

Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan is known as a tireless worker — the nation's longest serving statehouse speaker, chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, kingmaker and career-breaker— and he does it all without the aid of email or an appointment calendar. That is one extraordinary fact turned up by an Associated Press public-records request of the General Assembly's leaders in advance of Sunshine Week. The other is that the Illinois Senate considers itself immune under the state Constitution from having to turn over records. The AP submitted such requests to legislative leaders in all 50 states for daily schedules and emails from government accounts for the week of Feb. 1-7. In Illinois, which was the last state in the U.S. to adopt an open-records law, the effort produced nothing, for the following reasons: LAWMAKERS AREN'T 'PUBLIC BODIES’.
Caledonian Record

New Mexico legislative leaders rarely, if ever, communicate by work email and keep private the details of breakfast and dinner appointments with industry and special interest groups, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. The Legislature’s four top leaders provided their appointment calendars and hundreds of emails from the first week in February in response to the records request. Nearly all of the emails came from constituents; only three were outgoing messages. A small share of the work-related calendar appointments included names of individuals, and none described the content of conversations.
Durango Herald

In advance of Sunshine Week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is ordering his administration to improve its handling of public records requests, speed up response times and provide mandatory records training for all state workers. The move comes months after he helped draft legislation, later withdrawn, to severely restrict the kind of information the public can learn about how state and local governments work on behalf of taxpayers. Walker is also fighting a lawsuit over his refusal to disclose certain records by saying they were part of a "deliberative process.” Walker on Friday issued an executive order that emphasizes a number of areas in the state's Public Records Law, including responding to requests quickly and not charging for electronic responses to requests when possible.
Dunn County News

For years the NYPD’s record of spying on law-abiding Muslims has been the subject of fierce public debate. Yet the NYPD is still refusing to acknowledge the existence of basic information related to its controversial and well-documented surveillance program. Last week in an ornate courtroom next to Madison Square Park, the First Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court considered two cases in which the NYPD had responded to public records requests by stating it could not “confirm or deny the existence of such documents.” In both cases, one brought by a Rutgers University student and the other by a well-known Harlem imam, the Muslim appellants had reason to believe they had been subject to NYPD spying or surveillance. Both men requested records on themselves as well as organizations in which they have been involved, including the Rutgers University Muslim Student Association and the Mosque of the Islamic Brotherhood.
Gothamist

Editorials/Columns

When we talk about the Freedom of Information Act, the tendency is to focus on the part of Virginia law that governs access to public records. The records portion of the act takes up two-thirds of the act. The federal FOIA covers records only. And of the 200 or so questions and inquiries I’ve fielded in just the past four months, issues regarding records are more than twice as likely as any other topic. This emphasis on records, then, often obscures the fact that Virginia’s FOIA contains provisions governing the public’s right to attend the meetings of state and local public bodies. The meetings provisions are so often overlooked that I once had a legislator tell me that his bill to amend a section of the meetings provisions didn’t have anything to do with FOIA at all. So it makes some sense that exactly what FOIA does and doesn’t say about meetings isn’t as clear to either the public or public officials. I receive many calls from citizens who are sure that a public body messed up somewhere along the line in calling for, conducting and concluding a public meeting, but the law says they didn’t. And public officials often assert that the law prohibits something that it doesn’t. So here are the top three myths about public meetings and Virginia’s FOIA.
Megan Rhyne, Roanoke Times

We write often in these pages about the need for transparency and the importance of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To some perhaps those missives sound like issues that are important to newspapers but less relevant to the daily lives of ordinary American citizens. But this is very definitely about you. Local, state and federal legislators — from the county stormwater commissioner all the way up to the White House — make decisions about how to spend your tax dollars. They determine our laws, from hot button issues governing abortion and immigration, to less exciting but just as important matters that go a long way toward determining quality of life in your hometown — zoning regulations, public school budgets and many more. They answer for police shootings. These decisions need to be made in a public forum, not behind closed doors.
Daily Press

Lobbying to keep the light shining on public notices in independent Virginia newspapers consumed a great deal of my time during the first month the legislature was in session. A public notice is a formal announcement or warning that is legally required to be published as an advertisement in a qualified newspaper of general circulation. It helps citizens learn about plans and actions that will impact them and their community. Public notices may be published for a variety of reasons, including business and licensing matters, real estate foreclosures, public meetings, zoning, request of proposals, local government matters and elections. By publishing notices in newspapers, government serves the public’s right to know and maintains its own transparency.
Ginger Stanley, Richmond Times-Dispatch

We’ll admit that beating the drum for open government is self-serving. Without FOIA, the work of newspapers and other media outlets would be far more difficult. But in this case, our interests coincide with the public interest. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1787 letter to Edward Carrington, “The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution.” It is therefore crucial, he noted, “to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch

“[T]he affairs of government are not intended to be conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy since at all times the public is to be the beneficiary of any action taken at any level of government.” So begins the Virginia FOIA, the law that defines what information can be withheld from public view. While that approach represents a broad defense of citizen access, the law now includes numerous exemptions that contradict its straightforward intention. Some are minor, narrowly tailored provisions. For instance, it makes sense that a city council would meet in a closed session to discuss the purchase of property, so as to ensure the lowest price. But far too many are broad and sloppily written. Many of them give officials wide berth to deny the release of records or to draw the curtains on open meetings. Given the opportunity to hide from public view, too many will take it.
Virginian-Pilot

When residents react to government proposals, they certainly make a difference. Consider the debate over efforts to bring minor league baseball to the Fredericksburg area. First, the baseball club owner went to the City Council with a proposal that the city build the stadium. At a public hearing, council members heard plenty. Most who spoke clearly loved baseball but didn’t think it should be built with taxpayers’ cash. Next, a similar effort was brought to Spotsylvania County. Residents objected there too, for the same reason. Both attempts failed. In these days of leaner newsrooms, we invite taxpayers across the Fredericksburg region to join with The Free Lance–Star and other media outlets to fight for transparency and openness in government. Residents hold considerable power over elected officials. It’s about keeping an eye on government and exercising power in the voting booth. We should use this clout often.
Free Lance-Star

Laura Peters’ CPS investigation revealed an understaffed, high-turnover agency that is also under new management now. Former Shenandoah Valley Social Services Director Elizabeth Middleton had already accepted a job in Orange County when The News Leader story was published. None of these investigations came easy. By our judgment, one of the best things about the Academy Award-winning movie, “Spotlight,” was the true story it told about how difficult investigation journalism is and how long it can take. Our point here is not to self-congratulate but to note that March 13-19 is Sunshine Week, the annual nationwide celebration of access to public information. It was built around the March 16 birth date of James Madison, father of the Bill of Rights. As we sadly note every Sunshine Week, government secrecy at the state and local level matters little to some citizens. We are passionate about the topic, not because we expect wrongdoing at every turn, but because we believe open government is good government.
News Leader

The message of Sunshine Week is this: Federal, state, and local governments are subject to “sunshine” laws for a reason. The public cannot track the government, its activities, and its financial doings without access to the meetings and records created and held by government officials. Thus, government must always err on the side of open meetings and records, and keep them from public view only for the most pressing need. A “sunshine” law is the public’s light not just to guarantee access to innocuous meetings of the school noard or city council, but to cast a beam into the darker corners and recesses where government officials hide things. That light must be kept ready for those days when some government officials think they can keep us, and the truth about government activities, in the dark.
Winchester Star

Newly uncovered documents (made public only through a FOIA lawsuit) show the Obama administration aggressively lobbying against reforms proposed in Congress. The Associated Press found last year that the administration had set a record for censoring or denying access to information requested under FOIA, and that the backlog of unanswered requests across the government had risen by 55 percent, to more than 200,000. The Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee looked into the state of the public-records law and in January issued a report with a simple, devastating title: “FOIA Is Broken.” Why is the law failing so badly after all the promises about transparency? My experience and the experiences of other journalists suggest the reason is twofold: incompetence and neglect.
Justin Elliott, Washington Post