Transparency News 5/31/13

First Amendment Center: Virginia’s law prohibiting out-of-state residents from circulating petitions for third-party presidential candidates is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney’s ruling last year that the residency requirement is an impermissible restraint on political speech.

Times-Dispatch: When it comes to transparency in politics, both candidates for governor say they have nothing to hide. But on Thursday, at a fundraiser for an organization with a mission to foster transparency and engagement in government, they accused each other of being less than clear with voters.

Daily Press: The Isle of Wight School Board voted 4-1 Thursday to ask School Board member Herb DeGroft to resign over DeGroft’s sending of racist emails. DeGroft cast the sole dissenting vote. DeGroft said after the meeting that the vote won’t have any more effect on his decision to resign than the School Board’s initial May 20 statement calling for his resignation.

Daily Press: Virginia Port Authority officials said Thursday that the agency's governing board was unaware until last week of a relationship the agency has had with a federal lobbyist. A contract between lobbying shop Federal Advocates Inc., and a port authority contractor to lobby on the state agency's behalf was first reported by the Daily Press after a Tuesday board of commissioners meeting in which board chair William Fralin and spokesman Joe Harris both indicated the agency didn't hire a lobbyist. Their assertions were contradicted by Federal Advocates, a Northern Virginia-based lobbying shop which lists VPA as a client on its website and describes specific work done on behalf of the agency.

Roanoke Times: After spending the past five years on and off the market, The Roanoke Times has a buyer: a newspaper company owned by billionaire businessman Warren Buffett. Buffett’s BH Media Group will purchase the newspaper from Landmark Media Enterprises, the companies announced Thursday. The sale became effective at midnight.

Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau: The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, the parent organization of Watchdog.org, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Environmental Protection Agency in January.  Specifically, we asked the agency to provide us with copies of correspondence it had with green groups going back to August 2012. This would include email, snail mail and other written reports. We picked August as the cutoff so our request would correspond with the election season when energy policy was a hot topic of discussion.

Washington Post: It started with a click, an inadvertent camera flash, and a burst of anger and apparent bullying by the chairman of Loudoun County’s Board of Equalization. It ended with a quiet bit of legislating in Richmond during the recent session that turned control of that board over to the Loudoun Board of Supervisors, and in just a few months completed a huge revision of the way property is valued and taxed in America’s richest county. “There were a lot of transparency and serious operational questions about the way that the Board of Equalization had been operating,” Supervisor Matt Letourneau (R-Dulles) said. “To many of us, it became clear there was not accountability. We were concerned about how they were operating, what they were charging. We had reports of meetings not being recorded or the recorder turned off. That’s all stuff that can’t happen when you’re dealing with a public entity.”

National Stories

A student may sue her school district anonymously, a federal judge has ruled in the second case to challenge the placement of a monument displaying the Ten Commandments at a public school within the last year. U.S. District Judge Terrence McVerry of the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled that the as-yet-unnamed student and her mother can proceed under the Doe pseudonyms with which they brought the suit against the Connellsville Area School District in Southwest Pennsylvania.
Legal Intelligencer

Several news organizations have announced they will not attend this week’s off the record meetings with Attorney General Eric Holder unless the sit-downs are conducted on the record. CNN, Fox News, CBS News, Reuters, NBC News and McClatchy on Thursday joined The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Huffington Post in refusing to go to one of the Department of Justice’s off the record sessions about the department’s handling of investigations into journalists. POLITICO, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Bloomberg News, USA Today and the bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, have announced that they will attend the off the record meetings, which are being held to discuss changes to the Justice Department’s guidelines for subpoenas of reporters.
Politico

Three marijuana-related publications have filed a lawsuit in Colorado trying to overturn a provision in the state's brand-new pot laws. The publications — High Times magazine, The Daily Doobie and The Hemp Connoisseur — say a new law requiring marijuana-themed publications to be kept behind the counter in stores where they are sold violates free speech rights. The publications say they are being singled out because of their content, which they say is not obscene.
Denver Post

The Republican National Committee on Thursday filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding the State Department turn over any email communications between State Department employees and the Obama campaign related to the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya. In a statement released by the committee, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus says the move is intended to reveal any coordination between the State Department and the president's political team following the terror attack. Republicans have charged that the White House was initially reluctant to classify the Sept. 11, 2012 violence as terrorism because of political considerations ahead of the 2012 presidential elections.
The Hill
 

Editorials/Columns

Roanoke Times: Faithful readers of our printed page, patrollers of our website and digital products, and the rowdy regulars who populate our blogs are accustomed to change. This week, The Roanoke Times marks a particularly noteworthy milestone in its 126-year history with its sale to BH Media Group, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. In an industry where percolation is perpetual, two constants have been our commitment to this community and to ethical, high-quality journalism. Berkshire Hathaway shares those values. It is a forward-looking, resourceful company with high expectations for this newspaper and an inherent understanding of our mission.

News Leader: What a pleasure — a relief even — to know you’re doing the right thing, despite every obstacle your friends placed in the way. That must be what Gov. Bob McDonnell felt Wednesday as he announced plans to automatically restore voting and other civil rights to nonviolent felons who have paid their debt to society.

Los Angeles Times: After a firestorm of criticism, the Obama administration is suggesting that it will make amends for its aggressive pursuit of journalists suspected of receiving leaks of classified information. But airy affirmations of the importance of a free press and vague promises of a new look at Justice Department regulations aren't enough. The administration needs to commit itself in specific terms to stronger protections for news gathering that will be embodied in a federal statute.

Charles Haynes, First Amendment Center: When the U.S. Supreme Court declared legislative prayers constitutional 30 years ago, the justices sent a convoluted message to legislatures, city councils and other government bodies: You may open your sessions with prayer, a tradition that dates back to the founding of the Republic.  But don’t exploit the prayer opportunity “to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief.” (Marsh v. Chambers, 1983) Since nobody can agree on what that means, Americans have spent the last three decades debating and litigating who gets to pray – and what they can say – without running afoul of the Court’s murky guidance.