Transparency News 3/5/15
Thursday, March 5, 2015
State and Local Stories
A Virginia Supreme Court study panel recommends allowing defense attorneys to routinely examine police reports, including witness interviews, in criminal cases. Discovery of those reports could be limited by withholding, redacting or restricting disclosure of witness statements for good cause, the panel said. With that and numerous other recommendations, the court’s special committee on criminal discovery rules sought to avoid “trial by ambush” while preserving protections for victims and witnesses, the panel’s report said. The committee delivered its 60-page report to the court Dec. 2. The court released the report March 3 with a request for comments.
Virginia Lawyers Weekly
The former head of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority will receive $154,447 in severance pay, officials said Wednesday. Adrienne Goolsby, who resigned as CEO of the housing authority in January, was receiving a base salary of $183,800 at the time of her departure. The authority had been reluctant to release the amount of Goolsby’s severance. Officials denied a Freedom of Information Act request from the Richmond Times-Dispatch in early February that sought records of any severance agreement, written or otherwise. The authority said the records would not be disclosed because they dealt with confidential personnel issues. But the severance figure was provided Wednesday after the newspaper pointed officials to a 2013 opinion from the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council that said the amount of any severance paid to an outgoing official should be disclosed, even if documentation on severance agreements remains confidential. Goolsby had led the housing authority for three years.
Times-Dispatch
A woman hired this year to oversee the city of Richmond’s revenue-collection efforts left behind a string of controversies during a long career as an elected official in Norfolk. Sharon McDonald, who served as Norfolk’s commissioner of revenue for about 15 years, was hired by Richmond this year to serve as chief of revenue administration, a position responsible for the collection of city taxes, fees and utility payments. During her tenure in Norfolk, McDonald drew scrutiny for hiring her two daughters to work in her office; clashing with other city officials; and using a city credit card to pay for lobbying trips to Richmond, according to Norfolk records, interviews with Norfolk officials, and news stories published by The Virginian-Pilot. In Richmond, she’s part of a team of new hires that the administration of Mayor Dwight C. Jones says it assembled to turn around the city’s financial management.
Times-Dispatch
Norfolk Public Schools struggled to properly complete an application for federal grant money, causing delays that meant the division had little time to spend the funds when they were awarded. Documents obtained by The Pilot through the Freedom of Information Act showed the errors and confusion that led to missed deadlines in the fall and the ultimate forfeiture of $1.6 million in two federal grant cycles. The money, called Title I funding, is used to pay for instructional staff, materials and other resources at the division's impoverished schools.
Virginian-Pilot
Criticism of an ethics bill adopted Friday in the final hour of the General Assembly session mounted this week, as a group of House Democrats — including Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke — urged Gov. Terry McAuliffe to make major amendments and Senate Republican leaders accused House Speaker Bill Howell of resorting to hardball tactics to rush passage. The legislation, intended to tighten ethics rules in response to the corruption conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell in September, cleared both chambers by unanimous votes Friday. But six Democratic delegates said in a letter to the governor Wednesday that the outcome might have been different had they been given more time to understand “glaring deficiencies” in legislation hashed out during the last day. “There’s still a little bit there that I think is valid and we probably need to revisit,” said Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah. “We’ll be working . . . to try to get the governor to fix any obvious shortcomings that amount to unintended consequences.”
Washington Post
To print 1,700 copies of The Newsstreak each month, Harrisonburg High School’s student newspaper depends not only on its staff but also on the support of school administrators. Those efforts by The Newsstreak staff and HHS administration have been recognized with separate scholastic journalism awards. Senior Mia Karr, the current print editor-in-chief, and Principal Cynthia Prieto were honored for their respective roles at the school paper. This week, Karr, 18, learned that she had received the student Journalist of the Year Award for 2015 from the Virginia Association of Journalism Teachers and Advisers, the state affiliate of the national Journalism Education Association.
Daily News Record
National Stories
Hillary Clinton said late Wednesday that she had asked the State Department to make thousands of her emails available to the public, her first public response to a furor that followed the revelation that she used a private e-mail account for her correspondence while Secretary of State. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf released a statement early Thursday saying, "The State Department will review for public release the emails provided by Secretary Clinton to the Department, using a normal process that guides such releases. We will undertake this review as quickly as possible; given the sheer volume of the document set, this review will take some time to complete.” Clinton's message came hours after the House select committee investigating the 2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya subpoenaed her personal emails. The committee also also sent letters to Internet companies informing them of "their legal obligation to protect all relevant documents."
Fox News
Just before Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in January 2009, she and her closest aides decided that she should have her own private email address as Mrs. Clinton moved away from the Blackberry address that she had used during her 2008 presidential campaign. Private email would allow Mrs. Clinton to communicate with people in and out of government, separate from the system maintained at the State Department. domain name, clintonemail.com, which had a server linked to the Clintons’ home address in Chappaqua, N.Y. Obtaining an account from that domain became a symbol of status within the family’s inner circle, conferring prestige and closeness to the secretary. Chelsea Clinton was given one, but under a pseudonym, Diane Reynolds, which she frequently used when she checked into hotels.
New York Times
“And, of course, there have been questions raised about the security of the communications on a private network. A Gmail account or some other private server is not as secure as an official record-keeping system. And it's not clear what levels of encryption were employed here given the sensitivity of at least some of the secretary of state's commutations, so there are any number of questions raised. But at the bottom line from a record-keeping perspective is that everyone knows that kind of level of government, there are important matters communicated by email. And that's why high-level officials are expected to use official record-keeping systems so that there can be an appropriate capture of this document to preserve the nation's history.”
Jason Baron, former director of litigation at the National Archives, on NPR
Editorials/Columns
The last post explained why Virginia’s AGs issue opinions, why AG opinions matter but don’t control agencies, and what effect AG opinions have in court. This post examines the recent opinion concerning mug shots and considers what can be done if an AG opinion is wrong or incomplete. Anyone who hoped that the AG would uphold the clear provisions of FOIA has been disappointed by the opinion. Instead, the AG’s ultimate conclusion (on p.4) rests on the proposition that Virginia law embraces the form of storage over the substance of the record — a conclusion that provides a roadmap for how law enforcement can use storage location to evade FOIA.
Open Virginia Law
If the indictment and conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell can't spur Virginia lawmakers into passing substantive ethics reform, we have to wonder what will. Even with that unseemly episode casting a pall over the proceedings in Richmond this year, the General Assembly could manage only to pass legislation that will do little to curb questionable behavior by our elected officials. Honestly, we're not surprised. Absent overwhelming pressure from citizens, the men and women who conduct the affairs of government will not self-impose rules that make their service less lucrative or seriously alter how things are done in Richmond. And so it comes down to us, the people of Virginia. We must demand better from our lawmakers. We are right to expect accountability from those who serve in our name, and we must make that a primary issue when they come asking for our votes in the fall.
Daily Press
Delegates and senators waited until the final hours of their final day to hash out a compromise that reconciled differences in the versions each chamber had approved. The compromise, a 49-page substitute, hit the floor for a vote with hardly any time for deliberative discussion, apparently a consequence of House Republicans' insistence on leaving early. The changes, unsurprisingly, appear pretty much on par with what Virginians have come to expect from lawmakers, a majority of whom have shown how reluctant they are to give up control of their own privileged status. Changes won't take effect until next year. It's all pretty sad, particularly to state employees who are held to a higher standard and to the few lawmakers, like Poquoson's Republican Del. Gordon Helsel, who won't accept any gift. "It doesn't matter what it is," Helsel said, explaining his office's policy. "We're just not going to accept it.... I don't want to jeopardize my integrity in any way." It's a sensible approach, one that helps to preclude even an appearance of conflict and one that more of his colleagues should adopt. Unfortunately, too many have spent the session whining and wringing their hands, claiming they've been victimized by the news media, or that it's not possible to "legislate ethics" - a variant of the cliche that it's impossible to "legislate morality."
Virginian-Pilot
Anna Scholl, executive director of ProgressVA, told me the ethics bill might look good on the surface, but it perpetuates a system where special interests can curry favor "without much regulation or transparency." She also couldn't understand why lawmakers in the House and Senate, who passed their own versions of ethics legislation on Feb. 10, waited until late on Feb. 26 to begin hammering out a compromise. They adjourned late the next day. "It's unfortunate this was left till the last minute," Scholl said. It's clear legislators aren't heeding the consensus of Virginians. A poll of 1,062 registered state voters, released in January, showed support for changes in ethics regulations. The poll, by the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, found 64 percent of voters believe Virginia's political culture "is somewhat or not very honest and ethical." It's troublesome that some legislators think partisanship - rather than good governance - is spurring the calls for change. Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County and the House sponsor of the bill, said he wasn't surprised "ultra-left-wing political organizations are trying to criticize a Republican-led effort." No, Delegate. Strong ethics laws should be a concern of Republicans, Democrats and independents.
Roger Chesley, Virginian-Pilot
The princelings who populate Richmond’s legislature are convinced they are owed freebies and favors for their trouble in serving the public. Somehow, they have assured themselves that the bribery scandal that engulfed former governor Robert F. McDonnell (R), convicted last year of 11 felony corruption counts in federal court, has nothing to do with them. The result is half-hearted ethics legislation shot through with exceptions and exemptions — for example, excusing lawmakers from reporting free meals in the course of performing their “official duties,” which could mean, well, practically anything. Gifts from “personal friends,” who are fuzzily defined, are also exempt from the $100 cap. The bill’s most glaring defect is that it creates an ethics council whose functions are mostly advisory — read: toothless — and that lacks the power to initiate investigations, issue subpoenas or impose fines. Stripped of its six citizen members, foreseen in an earlier version of the legislation, the council’s nine members include four sitting lawmakers — one of whom will be Mr. Norment, who in 2012 accepted more than $40,000 worth of hunting trips paid for by lobbyists.
Washington Post
You have to crawl before you can walk. That’s something we all learn as children and, in this case, it also can be applied to politicians. During the session that ended last week, the Virginia General Assembly passed an ethics reform bill in hopes of cracking down on some of the circumstances that led to former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s conviction on multiple charges. While not addressing all of the issues, we view it as a solid step toward changing the ways politicians can be influenced.
News Virginian
This is to correct a misleading editorial recently published in The Free Lance–Star. The editorial used an edited quote that gives readers a false impression of my views. The quote used by your paper, “I don’t care what criteria you use; it’s going to be impossible to draw a competitive district,” was incomplete. What was actually said was “I don’t care what criteria you use; it’s going to be impossible to draw a competitive district in most of the commonwealth. You cannot draw a competitive district in places like Arlington or most of rural Virginia.” Even though the next redistricting will not be done until 2021, numerous proposals have been put forward this year to change how districts are drawn. For some reason, editorial pages and some organizations are demanding immediate action on redistricting even though actual redistricting is six years away. Many of the proposals involved creating an independent or bipartisan commission to draw the lines in an attempt to take politics out of the process. But those proposals require politicians to make the appointments to the so-called “independent” commission. I am not sure that this would remove politics from the process. All it would do is elevate the politics to a less-transparent level; who gets appointed to the commission, who makes the appointments, etc. But on the surface, it sounds good.
Del. Mark Cole, Free Lance-Star
State and Local Stories
A Virginia Supreme Court study panel recommends allowing defense attorneys to routinely examine police reports, including witness interviews, in criminal cases. Discovery of those reports could be limited by withholding, redacting or restricting disclosure of witness statements for good cause, the panel said. With that and numerous other recommendations, the court’s special committee on criminal discovery rules sought to avoid “trial by ambush” while preserving protections for victims and witnesses, the panel’s report said. The committee delivered its 60-page report to the court Dec. 2. The court released the report March 3 with a request for comments.
Virginia Lawyers Weekly
The former head of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority will receive $154,447 in severance pay, officials said Wednesday. Adrienne Goolsby, who resigned as CEO of the housing authority in January, was receiving a base salary of $183,800 at the time of her departure. The authority had been reluctant to release the amount of Goolsby’s severance. Officials denied a Freedom of Information Act request from the Richmond Times-Dispatch in early February that sought records of any severance agreement, written or otherwise. The authority said the records would not be disclosed because they dealt with confidential personnel issues. But the severance figure was provided Wednesday after the newspaper pointed officials to a 2013 opinion from the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council that said the amount of any severance paid to an outgoing official should be disclosed, even if documentation on severance agreements remains confidential. Goolsby had led the housing authority for three years.
Times-Dispatch
A woman hired this year to oversee the city of Richmond’s revenue-collection efforts left behind a string of controversies during a long career as an elected official in Norfolk. Sharon McDonald, who served as Norfolk’s commissioner of revenue for about 15 years, was hired by Richmond this year to serve as chief of revenue administration, a position responsible for the collection of city taxes, fees and utility payments. During her tenure in Norfolk, McDonald drew scrutiny for hiring her two daughters to work in her office; clashing with other city officials; and using a city credit card to pay for lobbying trips to Richmond, according to Norfolk records, interviews with Norfolk officials, and news stories published by The Virginian-Pilot. In Richmond, she’s part of a team of new hires that the administration of Mayor Dwight C. Jones says it assembled to turn around the city’s financial management.
Times-Dispatch
Norfolk Public Schools struggled to properly complete an application for federal grant money, causing delays that meant the division had little time to spend the funds when they were awarded. Documents obtained by The Pilot through the Freedom of Information Act showed the errors and confusion that led to missed deadlines in the fall and the ultimate forfeiture of $1.6 million in two federal grant cycles. The money, called Title I funding, is used to pay for instructional staff, materials and other resources at the division's impoverished schools.
Virginian-Pilot
Criticism of an ethics bill adopted Friday in the final hour of the General Assembly session mounted this week, as a group of House Democrats — including Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke — urged Gov. Terry McAuliffe to make major amendments and Senate Republican leaders accused House Speaker Bill Howell of resorting to hardball tactics to rush passage. The legislation, intended to tighten ethics rules in response to the corruption conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell in September, cleared both chambers by unanimous votes Friday. But six Democratic delegates said in a letter to the governor Wednesday that the outcome might have been different had they been given more time to understand “glaring deficiencies” in legislation hashed out during the last day. “There’s still a little bit there that I think is valid and we probably need to revisit,” said Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah. “We’ll be working . . . to try to get the governor to fix any obvious shortcomings that amount to unintended consequences.”
Washington Post
To print 1,700 copies of The Newsstreak each month, Harrisonburg High School’s student newspaper depends not only on its staff but also on the support of school administrators. Those efforts by The Newsstreak staff and HHS administration have been recognized with separate scholastic journalism awards. Senior Mia Karr, the current print editor-in-chief, and Principal Cynthia Prieto were honored for their respective roles at the school paper. This week, Karr, 18, learned that she had received the student Journalist of the Year Award for 2015 from the Virginia Association of Journalism Teachers and Advisers, the state affiliate of the national Journalism Education Association.
Daily News Record
National Stories
Hillary Clinton said late Wednesday that she had asked the State Department to make thousands of her emails available to the public, her first public response to a furor that followed the revelation that she used a private e-mail account for her correspondence while Secretary of State. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf released a statement early Thursday saying, "The State Department will review for public release the emails provided by Secretary Clinton to the Department, using a normal process that guides such releases. We will undertake this review as quickly as possible; given the sheer volume of the document set, this review will take some time to complete.” Clinton's message came hours after the House select committee investigating the 2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya subpoenaed her personal emails. The committee also also sent letters to Internet companies informing them of "their legal obligation to protect all relevant documents."
Fox News
Just before Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in January 2009, she and her closest aides decided that she should have her own private email address as Mrs. Clinton moved away from the Blackberry address that she had used during her 2008 presidential campaign. Private email would allow Mrs. Clinton to communicate with people in and out of government, separate from the system maintained at the State Department. domain name, clintonemail.com, which had a server linked to the Clintons’ home address in Chappaqua, N.Y. Obtaining an account from that domain became a symbol of status within the family’s inner circle, conferring prestige and closeness to the secretary. Chelsea Clinton was given one, but under a pseudonym, Diane Reynolds, which she frequently used when she checked into hotels.
New York Times
“And, of course, there have been questions raised about the security of the communications on a private network. A Gmail account or some other private server is not as secure as an official record-keeping system. And it's not clear what levels of encryption were employed here given the sensitivity of at least some of the secretary of state's commutations, so there are any number of questions raised. But at the bottom line from a record-keeping perspective is that everyone knows that kind of level of government, there are important matters communicated by email. And that's why high-level officials are expected to use official record-keeping systems so that there can be an appropriate capture of this document to preserve the nation's history.”
Jason Baron, former director of litigation at the National Archives, on NPR
Editorials/Columns
The last post explained why Virginia’s AGs issue opinions, why AG opinions matter but don’t control agencies, and what effect AG opinions have in court. This post examines the recent opinion concerning mug shots and considers what can be done if an AG opinion is wrong or incomplete. Anyone who hoped that the AG would uphold the clear provisions of FOIA has been disappointed by the opinion. Instead, the AG’s ultimate conclusion (on p.4) rests on the proposition that Virginia law embraces the form of storage over the substance of the record — a conclusion that provides a roadmap for how law enforcement can use storage location to evade FOIA.
Open Virginia Law
If the indictment and conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell can't spur Virginia lawmakers into passing substantive ethics reform, we have to wonder what will. Even with that unseemly episode casting a pall over the proceedings in Richmond this year, the General Assembly could manage only to pass legislation that will do little to curb questionable behavior by our elected officials. Honestly, we're not surprised. Absent overwhelming pressure from citizens, the men and women who conduct the affairs of government will not self-impose rules that make their service less lucrative or seriously alter how things are done in Richmond. And so it comes down to us, the people of Virginia. We must demand better from our lawmakers. We are right to expect accountability from those who serve in our name, and we must make that a primary issue when they come asking for our votes in the fall.
Daily Press
Delegates and senators waited until the final hours of their final day to hash out a compromise that reconciled differences in the versions each chamber had approved. The compromise, a 49-page substitute, hit the floor for a vote with hardly any time for deliberative discussion, apparently a consequence of House Republicans' insistence on leaving early. The changes, unsurprisingly, appear pretty much on par with what Virginians have come to expect from lawmakers, a majority of whom have shown how reluctant they are to give up control of their own privileged status. Changes won't take effect until next year. It's all pretty sad, particularly to state employees who are held to a higher standard and to the few lawmakers, like Poquoson's Republican Del. Gordon Helsel, who won't accept any gift. "It doesn't matter what it is," Helsel said, explaining his office's policy. "We're just not going to accept it.... I don't want to jeopardize my integrity in any way." It's a sensible approach, one that helps to preclude even an appearance of conflict and one that more of his colleagues should adopt. Unfortunately, too many have spent the session whining and wringing their hands, claiming they've been victimized by the news media, or that it's not possible to "legislate ethics" - a variant of the cliche that it's impossible to "legislate morality."
Virginian-Pilot
Anna Scholl, executive director of ProgressVA, told me the ethics bill might look good on the surface, but it perpetuates a system where special interests can curry favor "without much regulation or transparency." She also couldn't understand why lawmakers in the House and Senate, who passed their own versions of ethics legislation on Feb. 10, waited until late on Feb. 26 to begin hammering out a compromise. They adjourned late the next day. "It's unfortunate this was left till the last minute," Scholl said. It's clear legislators aren't heeding the consensus of Virginians. A poll of 1,062 registered state voters, released in January, showed support for changes in ethics regulations. The poll, by the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, found 64 percent of voters believe Virginia's political culture "is somewhat or not very honest and ethical." It's troublesome that some legislators think partisanship - rather than good governance - is spurring the calls for change. Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County and the House sponsor of the bill, said he wasn't surprised "ultra-left-wing political organizations are trying to criticize a Republican-led effort." No, Delegate. Strong ethics laws should be a concern of Republicans, Democrats and independents.
Roger Chesley, Virginian-Pilot
The princelings who populate Richmond’s legislature are convinced they are owed freebies and favors for their trouble in serving the public. Somehow, they have assured themselves that the bribery scandal that engulfed former governor Robert F. McDonnell (R), convicted last year of 11 felony corruption counts in federal court, has nothing to do with them. The result is half-hearted ethics legislation shot through with exceptions and exemptions — for example, excusing lawmakers from reporting free meals in the course of performing their “official duties,” which could mean, well, practically anything. Gifts from “personal friends,” who are fuzzily defined, are also exempt from the $100 cap. The bill’s most glaring defect is that it creates an ethics council whose functions are mostly advisory — read: toothless — and that lacks the power to initiate investigations, issue subpoenas or impose fines. Stripped of its six citizen members, foreseen in an earlier version of the legislation, the council’s nine members include four sitting lawmakers — one of whom will be Mr. Norment, who in 2012 accepted more than $40,000 worth of hunting trips paid for by lobbyists.
Washington Post
You have to crawl before you can walk. That’s something we all learn as children and, in this case, it also can be applied to politicians. During the session that ended last week, the Virginia General Assembly passed an ethics reform bill in hopes of cracking down on some of the circumstances that led to former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s conviction on multiple charges. While not addressing all of the issues, we view it as a solid step toward changing the ways politicians can be influenced.
News Virginian
This is to correct a misleading editorial recently published in The Free Lance–Star. The editorial used an edited quote that gives readers a false impression of my views. The quote used by your paper, “I don’t care what criteria you use; it’s going to be impossible to draw a competitive district,” was incomplete. What was actually said was “I don’t care what criteria you use; it’s going to be impossible to draw a competitive district in most of the commonwealth. You cannot draw a competitive district in places like Arlington or most of rural Virginia.” Even though the next redistricting will not be done until 2021, numerous proposals have been put forward this year to change how districts are drawn. For some reason, editorial pages and some organizations are demanding immediate action on redistricting even though actual redistricting is six years away. Many of the proposals involved creating an independent or bipartisan commission to draw the lines in an attempt to take politics out of the process. But those proposals require politicians to make the appointments to the so-called “independent” commission. I am not sure that this would remove politics from the process. All it would do is elevate the politics to a less-transparent level; who gets appointed to the commission, who makes the appointments, etc. But on the surface, it sounds good.
Del. Mark Cole, Free Lance-Star
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