New York AG candidates: I’m more transparent than you are!

One interesting phenomena is candidates for public office trying to out-transparency the other guy. New York state attorney general candidates Daniel Donovan (R) and Eric Schneiderman (D) are doing just that. Donovan is proposing transparency in spending, and Schneiderman is calling him out for weak promises.

According to Staten Island Real-Time News, Donovan proposed an increase in transparency for “taxpayer-funded member item allocations, which make up for $170 million in lawmaker spending on special projects.” Donovan, currently the Staten Island District Attorney, proposes requiring lawmakers to provide documentation proving no conflict of interest in order to limit the funneling of money towards pet projects and organizations they were already involved with.

“New Yorkers should have every faith that their tax dollars are being allocated to not-for-profit organizations that are providing critical services in our communities, not to organizations being used as the personal piggy bank for politicians who have long forgotten who they were elected to serve.”

This would seemingly include transparency in membership to taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. These associations are generally nonprofits and they lobby on behalf of their members, which are public officials. Public officials either use money from their public offices or their governments to cover the cost of membership in these associations and, in return, disclose little about the activities and costs of membership. So while taxpayers are funding the projects of these groups, we have little say in whether we approve or not.

Donovan’s Democratic opponent Eric Schneiderman responded:

“It’s nice to see Republican Dan Donovan finally take an interest in reform issues for the first time now that he’s running for office. But Eric Schneiderman has been a leading reformer for years, leading the charge to expel a corrupt senator for the first time in history, and writing the most sweeping ethics reform legislation in a generation.”

If only upping the ante on transparency were this popular all the time. Speaking of transparency, check out State Budget Solutions’ take on it here: State Budget Crises Won’t Just Dissapear. (Hint: There’s government transparency, and then there’s Caspar-the-Ghost transparency.)

Maryland School Districts Score “C” on Transparency Test

Alexandria, VA— Maryland school districts earned an overall “C” for information available on their websites according to an analysis conducted by Sunshine Review, a pro-transparency group. The analysis found that Howard County Public Schools earned a perfect score; Frederick and Montgomery County Schools received the only other “A” grades. Five school districts received failing grades, including Talbot and St. Mary’s County Public Schools.

Sunshine Review employs a “10 Point Transparency Checklist” to assess state and local government websites on proactive disclosure of government information. The checklist measures content available on government websites against what should be provided. Checklist items include information about budgets, meetings, elected and administrative officials, background checks, audits, contracts, academic performance, public records, and taxes.

Marta Hummel Mossburg, a Senior Fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, noted the importance of providing key information. “As Sunshine Review’s analysis of Maryland’s school districts shows, most fail to provide information online about fees funding schools and other key documents. In good times and especially during this recession, parents and residents should have easy access to whether their dollars are being spent wisely.”

President of Sunshine Review Michael Barnhart agreed, saying “It is crucial for parents and taxpayers to have access to complete information about how school districts operate.”

Sunshine Review is a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency. Sunshine Review collaborates with individuals and organizations throughout America in the cause of an informed citizenry and a transparent government. Since its inception in 2008, Sunshine Review has analyzed the websites of all 50 states, more than 3,140 counties, 805 cities, and 1,560 school districts.

For more information, visit www.sunshinereview.org.

Supreme Court says Washington referenda ballot names are public

Washington state has resolved an issue with the help of the Supreme Court. Turns out referendum ballot names are public, after all.

Referendum 71 expanded the state domestic-partnership law to grant certain marriage benefits to gay couples. Anti-referendum citizens got the referendum back on the ballot for a vote, and pro-referendum citizens wanted names. Those who got the referendum back on the ballot sued to block the disclosure of those names.

The issue was whether disclosing the names of those who got the referendum back on the ballot would violate the signers’ First Amendment rights. This argument stated that public ballots would ultimately lead to a chilling effect on expression and civic involvement; votes on sensitive issues made public would lead to harassment of those who vote in unpopular ways. The other perspective was to note the legislative nature of voting on referenda. Legislating comes with the presumption of complete openness equal to the importance public votes in a legislature. In this view, referenda votes are public by their very nature.

The Supreme Court ruled that petition signers’ names are not private in an 8-1 decision, with Thomas dissenting.

Repeated themes stressed the significant flexibility of states to implement their own voting systems, the importance of preserving the integrity of the electoral process and the promotion of transparency and accountability in the electoral process.

The justices said the plaintiff, Protect Marriage Washington, had not made the case its petition signers were any more subject to harassment than petition signers on issues as potentially emotional as taxes and property rights. This was one of the major points of those fighting to keep names private: those supporting unpopular positions would be in peril if their privacy was not respected. This lack of security would severely hinder people’s ability to express themselves.

There was also the viewpoint that the actions of private citizens are not a part of transparency: transparency involves the actions of government made public, not the actions of citizens. However, since voting on referenda can be seen as akin to making legislation as noted above, it would be of utmost importance that the votes remain public.

“Remain” public: that was another part of the pro-disclosure argument back in April: petitioners’ names are available through the state’s open records act, the Washington Public Records Act. In essence, the names were already public.

The justices, while deciding that disclosure was necessary, told the plaintiffs they could go to a lower court to get a specific exemption on other grounds besides 1st amendment issues. The chief lawyer said they would do just that.

The balance between privacy and open government remains delicate, and the fact that the court left room for future exemptions begs the question: how much of referendum information will ultimately be deemed public, and how will these lines be drawn?

CORRECTION: One commenter notes: “The issue was not about anti-referendum VOTERS, but the names of those who signed the referendum petition to put it on the ballot. The VOTER information is still private.”

D.C. Attorney General: D.C is transparent enough

A few days ago, DC Attorney General Peter Nickles asked the D.C. Council to pass legislation that would give the administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty “unspecified additional time” to respond to Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests in unusual circumstances. D.C. currently allows 15 days for a response to a FOIA, with a 10 day extension. (In comparison, Illinois FOIA law allows for 5 days to respond, and an additional 5 day extension.)

“I have never seen more burdensome FOIA requests that are sapping the energy of our lawyers and paralegals,” Nickles said. “You can’t both cut our budget and expect that we’re not going to have difficulties responding.”

Of course, executing open records and open meetings acts are worth extra money. It is part of governments’ responsibilities to deliver information we have a right to. But it is also important to balance this need with reality. What are the reasons to extend the amount of days to answer a request? As Nickles noted, sometimes governments don’t have the resources to answer all information requests in a timely matter.

My experience with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act shows the dual nature of the matter. Illinois had been suffering from poorly fulfilled FOIAs when the Attorney General Lisa Madigan decided to back an upgrade to the law. The new Illinois FOIA law, as compared to the old FOIA, gave governments more compelling reasons to answer a FOIA by upping the penalities for failing to comply with the law. It also shortened the amount of time to respond from seven days to five. After I sent FOIAs to all 102 of Illinois counties, somewhere around 80% (or higher) of the counties asked for the additional 5 day extension. This could point to the fact that for certain requests, the time limit is too strict. Still, what is the alternative? The alternative is local governments not taking a FOIA seriously and abusing more generous time limits.

But Nickles says the Fenty administration isn’t in this boat: the administration is doing great on transparency. One member of the DC Council, Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), disagrees and is currently advancing a transparency bill that would create an independent agency to oversee and facilitate the diclosure of records. Nickles has said the bill is unnecessary because the Fenty administration is creating an electronic system that will make it easier to submit and track FOIA requests. Nickles pointed to statistics that show the average response time to requests has been reduced since 2007. In general, the AG thinks D.C. is transparent enough already.

However, as one participant in our weekly Twitter conference notes, there is no such thing as too much transparency. We are due every last bit of nonsensitive information, online, and once that utopia is reached, we want information in real-time.

Cheh, in return, has said Nickles “is looking for an open-ended excuse not to comply, and he’s not going to get it. It’s a simple invitation to delay, an invitation to mischief.”

Fenty’s administration has sought to “delay at every turn” says the Chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police. The union’s attorney noted that the District “doesn’t respond at all or responds a year or two later, only after we file a lawsuit.”

Nickles also took issue with a provision of Cheh’s bill that would allow the new agency to impose fines. He said it would create an “unnecessarily punitive and adversarial approach that casts government agencies and their employees as villains to be punished and pursued.”

“Unnecessary” is in the eye of the beholder, which is the taxpayer in this case. Governments can’t afford to get lazy when it comes to providing information to its citizens, and they must lean towards quick disclosure. Illinois law treats asking for unreasonable fees for a FOIA response as noncompliance. In the same vein, if D.C. is really taking up to a year to respond to a FOIA, and ignoring others, then that is noncompliance, breaking the FOIA law, which makes the negligent agency a criminal. Nickles should be fighting for stricter penalties, not serving as an apologist to lazy governments.