Transparency News 3/28/14

Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Thursday that a recent email solicitation for his newly formed political action committee — which promised access to the governor, his family and policy experts in exchange for an escalating scale of donations — was sent out without his review or approval. “They put out a piece of paper I had never seen or approved,” McAuliffe told listeners on his call-in show on WRVA in Richmond, responding to a question about the recent solicitation by the governor’s Common Good Virginia PAC. Michael Halle, director of McAuliffe’s Common Good PAC, said last week that the solicitation was “nothing out of the ordinary,” but on Thursday the governor indicated that what was extraordinary about the solicitation was likely not going to happen. “We’re not going to do what they said,” he told listeners on the radio show. That does not mean the governor — a legendary fundraiser from his days as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and work on the presidential campaigns of Bill and Hillary Clinton — is not going to seek cash for his causes.
Roanoke Times 

By the time a mental health worker saw Austin C. “Gus” Deeds, only 41 minutes remained on an emergency court order for his evaluation. Within five minutes, the evaluator knew Deeds needed further care. A two-hour extension was acquired. It was not enough. Time ran out. Deeds was released. Thirteen hours later, the senator’s son was dead. The account of the last full day of Deeds’ life, detailed in a 53-page report released Thursday by state Inspector General Michael Morehart, lays bare the gaps in the state’s patchwork system of mental health services.
Daily Progress

National Stories

A judge ordered state prison officials on Thursday to disclose the supplier of lethal injection drugs to lawyers for two death row inmates, but stopped short of revealing the identity to the public. The ruling came after the Texas Department of Criminal Justice argued that threats against execution suppliers were growing in danger. Phil Durst, one of the lawyers trying to make the suppliers known, said they had a right to know where the drugs originated. “Maybe this stuff is A-O.K.,” he said. “Maybe this stuff was laced with strychnine off the street. We don’t know.” The prison agency lost its previous supplier last year after its name was made public and it received threats.
New York Times

The Faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater has responded to a controversy over a surreptitiously obtained classroom video of a guest lecturer lambasting Republicans by moving to bar students from recording and disseminating such footage. Although the campus’s chancellor, Richard J. Telfer, has not yet signed off on the videotaping policy, statements issued by him and a spokeswoman on Thursday suggested he expected to approve it.
Chronicle of Higher Education

A Washington state newspaper is crying foul after a state senator proposed making the paper pay a $150,000-a-year fine for being “one of the top polluters in the county.” It just so happens that the lawmaker, state Sen. Don Benton, had been the subject of a series of critical articles in the same newspaper.  The editor of The Columbian is now accusing Benton of playing hardball. Editor Lou Brancaccio told FoxNews.com it is clear Benton’s “nonsensical” proposal is “silly on its face and in our view, retaliatory." 
Fox News

Chinese Internet company Baidu Inc. won the dismissal of a U.S. lawsuit by pro-democracy activists who complained that Baidu illegally suppressed political speech on China’s most widely used Internet search engine. Eight New York writers and video producers had accused Baidu of creating search engine algorithms, at the behest of China, to block users in the United States from viewing articles, videos and other information advocating greater democracy in China.
Reuters

A Pennsylvania woman who protested at the White House will get an apology and a family trip to Washington from the U.S. Secret Service to settle a lawsuit that accused the officers of effectively turning her away. Under the settlement approved by a judge on Thursday, two Secret Service officers agreed to write letters of apology to the woman, former police officer Debra Hartley. The Secret Service agreed to provide Hartley, her lawyer, her daughter and two grandchildren a 45-minute meeting with its director, according to the U.S. District Court settlement. The agency also will reimburse Hartley for mileage from her home to Washington, pay for two hotel rooms for one night, including parking, and provide a government-rate per diem for up to three days. The settlement did not specify the cost.
Reuters
 

Editorials/Columns

This week's thorns go to:
• The PTA for Hampton Public Schools, which hosted a meet-and-greet forum at which the school board candidates were allowed to make brief stump speeches – but with no public Q-and-A session permitted.
Daily Press

(Note: The report was released Thursday afternoon)
The public deserves answers about what happened when Sen. Deeds took his son to Bath County mental health workers, worried about his son’s danger to himself and others to the point he obtained a temporary court order to commit him for medical observation. Saying they could find no available hospital beds, officials released the younger Deeds; hours later he attacked his dad and killed himself. The public deserves those answers, but we don’t have them yet because the report is still sealed. According to Inspector General Michael Morehart, that’s at the request of the Virginia State Police, which is reviewing the report for possible criminal charges. But as Morehart told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, there’s no legal basis for withholding the report from the public.
News Leader