Transparency News 4/12/16

State and Local Stories

Horror stories about the electric chair led Gov. Terry McAuliffe to offer a choice to the General Assembly: go along with a proposal he says will make it easier to obtain lethal injection drugs or see an end to capital punishment in Virginia. McAuliffe says he will veto General Assembly death penalty legislation if lawmakers reject his amendment that would strike out language making the electric chair the automatic method of execution if the state can't get compounds of several drugs it uses in lethal injections. "If they do not accept my amendments, I want to be very clear, I will veto this legislation," McAuliffe said. "The veto of this legislation will halt capital punishment."
Daily Press
Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Monday he has amended a bill that would require state officials to use the electric chair if they can't obtain the lethal injection drugs to carry out an execution. His alternative would allow the Department of Corrections to secretly make the drugs through a pharmacy and use them without public scrutiny.
Virginian-Pilot
Faced with a shortage of lethal injection drugs, Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Monday suggested maintaining the death penalty in Virginia by allowing the state to acquire drugs in secret from unidentified pharmacies rather than relying on the electric chair as a fallback.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Several Virginia Republican leaders said Monday they would join Gov. Terry McAuliffe in his effort to use secret pharmacies to supply the drugs the state needs to carry out death sentences. McAuliffe (D) on Sunday gutted a bill passed by the legislature that would have required the use of the electric chair if the state couldn’t obtain the drugs, which have become scarce around the nation.
Washington Post
Rather than sign a bill to make the electric chair the backup method for executions in Virginia when lethal injection drugs are unavailable, Gov. Terry McAuliffe has instead proposed a plan to encourage companies to make the drugs by allowing their identities to be shielded from the public.
Washington Times

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a bill that will require him and future governors to release applications and résumés of people appointed to state boards and commissions. The bill stemmed from a nasty state Senate race last year in which Democrat Gary McCollum challenged Republican Sen. Frank Wagner in Virginia Beach. McCollum said he didn’t realize he had been discharged from the Army in 2001. Requests for paperwork he filed with the state when he was appointed to boards – which could have shed light on what he believed to be his military status – were denied by McAuliffe as exempt from mandatory release under the state’s Freedom of Information Act. Del. Scott Taylor, R-Virginia Beach, introduced HB220 this year. As amended in the House, it will require the governor to release applications and resumés of board appointees starting July 1.
Virginian-Pilot

Gov. Terry McAuliffe has vetoed more legislation than any governor since Jim Gilmore in 1998, and Democrats have a simple response: We told you so. The governor with liberal bona fides promised to nix any bills that he thought would erode gay rights, block women’s access to health care or otherwise fly in the face of Democratic principles. “Unfortunately, they sent those bills to me and I vetoed them. No surprise,” McAuliffe (D) told reporters Monday. The governor vetoed 32 of the 811 bills that lawmakers sent to his desk for action by midnight Sunday.
Washington Post

A Petersburg City Council member's effort to unseat Mayor W. Howard Myers had an inconclusive outcome last night at a special meeting called to consider her motion. On the advice of Acting City Attorney Mark Flynn, council members never went into an expected closed session to consider Ward 1 representative Treska Wilson-Smith's motion to dismiss Myers, who represents Ward 5. Instead, after hearing Flynn's presentation and asking a few questions, they let the matter drop. Wilson-Smith made the motion at last week's regular council meeting, but no one seconded it. Instead, council asked Flynn to research their authority regarding dismissal of a mayor and to report back at a closed meeting Monday evening.
Progress-Index



National Stories
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Criticism of the Freedom of Information Act is frequently directed at the way that agencies implement the FOIA process, or the ways that they fail to do so. Requesters complain that responses to requests are delayed, often for years, that exemptions from disclosures are interpreted too broadly or in self-serving ways, and that fee waivers are arbitrarily withheld. It sometimes seems to be necessary to file a lawsuit just in order to get an agency’s attention. But it turns out that government agencies also have complaints of their own, including what they consider to be abusive behavior by some FOIA requesters. The latest report from the Department of Defense Chief FOIA Officer notes that some DOD components are “overwhelmed by one or two requesters who try to monopolize the system by filing a large number of requests or submitting disparate requests in groups which require a great deal of administrative time to adjudicate.”
Federation of American Scientists

The three northern Iowa counties being sued by a Des Moines water utility have received $900,000 in donations to cover most of their legal bills, but officials won't identify the donors. The Des Moines Register reports Sac, Buena Vista and Calhoun counties recently released about 260 pages of legal records to several newspapers and the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. The counties have racked up nearly $1.1 million in legal bills so far. Officials don't believe they are required to identify the donors because state law exempts donations from foundations that support government.
KCRG

Public officials in Texas who use private email accounts to conduct official business cannot conceal their personal email addresses when releasing public information, a state appeals court ruled Friday. The question dates back to 2011, when The Austin Bulldog, an independent online news site, filed several open records requests asking for all emails regarding city business between the Austin mayor, city council members and the city manager, according to court papers. The city immediately turned over some information, but withheld the rest, asking the attorney general's office for advice on whether that remaining information was subject to disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act. The office advised the city to turn over those documents, which it did. However, the city redacted the personal email addresses of city officials, complicating the flow of conversations because it was unclear who was saying what and to whom. The city said an exemption under the Public Information Act allowed it to redact personal email addresses in disclosed correspondences if the email address belonged to a "member of the public." 
Texas Tribune

Editorials/Columns

The latest indication that something is rotten with business as usual in Virginia politics comes courtesy of The Associated Press. The news cooperative’s analysis of campaign finance records exposed common practices that can lead to conflicts of interest and corruption. Average Virginians need to understand how the system works so they may conclude the ethical implications of money in politics. Many lawmakers rely heavily on the corporate interests that lobby them to build campaign war chests, even though few legislators face serious challengers. With all that money sloshing around, no wonder competitors are scared off. Lawmakers also raise money to give to other candidates, furthering the good ’ol boy system in which legislators go along to get along. Clearly, a lot of money is being passed around between Virginia’s power brokers, with the public none the wiser about the details. Is that what you want?
Free Lance-Star