Transparency News 5/17/16

State and Local Stories

A leading environmentalist group discouraged efforts to bring federal racketeering charges against oil companies and groups they support for “denying” climate change, suggesting instead that proponents of the effort enlist state-level law enforcement officials, newly released emails show. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) told professors at George Mason University, a public university in Virginia, that their push to enlist Attorney General Loretta Lynch in a civil action against oil companies and policy groups to which they donate was not legally sound. The UCS emails were among those shared exclusively with the Washington Free Beacon on Friday after a Virginia judge rejected George Mason’s attempts to seal the records pending litigation over an open records lawsuit brought by attorney Chris Horner.
Washington Free Beacon

A man who was fatally wounded by a Fredericksburg police officer on March 22 tried to take the officer’s gun at least three times before the officer shot him in the leg, according to a special prosecutor’s report released Monday. Fauquier County senior assistant prosecutor Charles Peters’ 17-page report gives a detailed account of the incident, but acknowledges that footage from officer Christopher Brossmer’s body camera was jumbled during “arguably the most important few seconds of video.” The camera, which was on the officer’s cap, was dislodged during the incident. Fredericksburg city police spokeswoman Sarah Kirkpatrick declined a request Monday for body camera footage of the incident. She noted that the Fredericksburg Police Department’s “administrative investigation” is ongoing.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Culpeper County’s former top prosecutor, Megan Frederick, will avoid a two-day jury trial in December stemming from a March 2013 altercation with a county information technology systems specialist. Todd H. Frazier, 51, initially filed a $25,000 lawsuit against Frederick on March 2, 2015 claiming that two years earlier, on March 4, 2013, Frederick grabbed his arm after he removed a law enforcement case management system from three computers in her office. During the March 2015 trial in Culpeper County General District Court, Frederick denied she ever touched Frazier.
Star-Exponent

Kevin E. Martingayle, an attorney with Bischoff Martingayle in Virginia Beach and the 2014-15 president of the Virginia State Bar, has agreed to represent Ward 1 Councilwoman Treska Wilson-Smith, who is facing a formal misconduct complaint filed against her by Mayor and Ward 5 Councilman W. Howard Myers. Martingayle's involvement in Wilson-Smith's case came to light Thursday when a California businessman and part-time Petersburg resident with longstanding family ties to the city, Bill Nicholson, posted a letter written by Martingayle to Acting City Attorney Mark Flynn on the Facebook page of a group called Clean Sweep Petersburg that has been critical of a number of city leaders. Wilson-Smith said Friday she didn't choose to make the letter public herself but gave permission to others to publicize it. She declined to comment on the letter or Myers' complaint. Asked whether he was paying Martingayle to represent Wilson-Smith, Nicholson responded indirectly: “Some people have reached out to me about certain things ... I have stepped up to the plate on certain things.” For instance, Nicholson noted, he paid a fine owed to the city by citizen activist Linwood Christian, who was barred by Myers last year from speaking at City Council meetings because of his unpaid fines. 
Progress-Index



National Stories
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a law that hits the justices close to home: a ban on protests on the marble plaza in front of the courthouse where they hear cases and issue rulings. The court left in place a 2015 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which said the 1949 federal law prohibiting the protests does not violate the guarantee of freedom of speech under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
Reuters

The Supreme Court sided narrowly with business over consumers Monday, ruling that false information disseminated on the Internet does not necessarily lead to a successful class action lawsuit. The 6-2 ruling was intended to avoid an onslaught of frivolous lawsuits targeting innocent biographical errors, which business groups warned could happen if the justices opened the courthouse doors to such lawsuits. The justices did not slam the door shut in the case of Thomas Robins, who sued an Internet-based "people search platform" over its inaccurate description of him. The company, Spokeo, listed Robins as in his 50s, married with children, gainfully employed, having a graduate degree, with "very strong" economic health and personal wealth in the top 10%. In truth, Robins was none of those things.
USA Today

A federal judge has struck down some of Kentucky's judicial conduct rules meant to keep nonpartisan judges and judicial candidates out of organized politics. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar handed down a summary judgment largely in favor of Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Allison Jones and 2014 judicial candidates Robert A. Winter Jr. and Cameron A. Blau. The plaintiffs, all from Northern Kentucky, sued the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission in 2014 to challenge its assorted prohibitions against political behavior by judges and judicial candidates. Thapar said Kentucky has a right to make judicial races nonpartisan, but the First Amendment's protection of free speech means judges and judicial candidates also have rights.
Governing


Editorials/Columns

Simplicity and transparency in federal budgeting might be an unreachable goal, but Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, wants to at least move the needle toward improving accessibility for the public. Brat has introduced a resolution requiring the House Appropriations Committee to provide a budget spreadsheet and appropriations information on its website. The data would include budgets for the past 10 years, so the public could track spending over time, as well as information on the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The government already collects the information. The trick is shaping it into a form that people can understand, and then making those results easily available.
Daily Progress