IL FOIA law under attack (again)

Last year it took the Illinois State Legislature less then 15 days to limit the new and improved state Freedom of Information Act when it added exemptions for performance evaluations of teachers, administrators and superintendents.

Other public employees thought this was a grand idea, which lead to HB 5154, which would exempt all performance evaluations (even though it was allowed even the under previous version of the law). In July, Gov. Pat Quinn partially vetoed the bill, saying that only emergency personnel would be exempted.

But the bill is back from the dead, and expected to be voted on during next weeks veto session. The Illinois Press Association (IPA) is anticipating three possible outcomes:

• Representatives could approve the governor’s amendment and send it to the Senate (IPA thinks it’s unlikely)
• The House could override the veto with a three-fifths majority vote (which they need only more to do) and send the bill to the Senate (IPA believe this is possible)
• Or the House could do nothing, which would kill the bill and leave FOIA intact (IPA preferred)

I’m with the IPA, option number three please.

Who will implement transparency?

Elections are over, and as we head towards 2011, I’m wondering which elected officials will be taking a stand to implement transparency.

Literally, I’m wondering, because I can’t find the information anywhere. Here are the few leads I have found:

Obama and Biden continue their trend of showroom transparency. Earlier this week, Biden closed a meeting to discuss stimulus transparency, and the irony did not escape us. Also a new graph showing the Obama administration has not followed through with its promise to “post the bill,” posting less then half of them online.

I did manage to dig up a list of republican and democratic transparency pledges from the United States House & Senate, though I suspect they are incomplete.

But what about at the state and local level? Do you know of any officials who campaigned on transparency and plan to implement it in the new year? We’ll be discussing this and other 2011 predictions for transparency this week during #FOIAchat and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you do know of any newly elected officials and their transparency promises please leave their names in the comments. Thanks!

Texas Gov. Perry FOIA Fail

Gov. Rick Perry’s office has declined to release a state contract granting $4.5 million to an Austin company from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The company is reportedly founded by Perry campaign donor and friend David Nance.

The American-Statesman requested the contract under the Texas Public Information Act. In a letter to the newspaper Monday, the governor’s office said it believes the contract is not public under several exceptions to the law. Perry has requested an attorney general’s opinion on how he should approach the resquest for information, which the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas sees as a stalling tactic: it could take weeks or months before AG Greg Abbot makes a decision.

The contract is with Convergen LifeSciences, Inc. and was signed on August 13. The company has already been paid $2.25 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Perry’s office has not announced the contract or explained what Convergen does.

“Generally speaking, any contract with the state involving public funds is public information, period,” said Bill Christian, an Austin lawyer who is representing the American-Statesman in the matter.

The letter to the Statesman from the Office of the General Counsel for the governor said the contract should remain secret because it falls under the economic development information exception of the law. But Bill Larsen from the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas said that exemption doesn’t apply once contracts have been signed.

Perry’s office also said the contract should remain secret because it is covered by exemptions to the public information law covering information related to competition or bidding, trade secrets and certain confidential or financial information.

Exemptions to public information laws do exist and exist for good reason. Learn more about state sunshine laws.

How to find dead voters

It’s Halloween, and we’re looking to find some dead voters here at Sunshine Review. First off I’d like to thank Texas Watchdog for giving me loads of help and information on this post.

Here is the basic breakdown of how you find dead voters:

• Step 1: Get access to the Social Security Death Master File. You can do this by placing a public records request with the government, or, if you are a reporter, by getting the database from the Investigative Reporters and Editors database library.
• Step 2: Request the voter rolls and voting history databases for your county or state.
• Step 3: Import the data into programs like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. Then clean up the entries, removing or replacing double names, blanks, different spelling for suffixes, etc.
• Step 4: Join the databases together and see how many exact matches there are on name and date of birth.
• Step 5: Then see how many close matches you can find (aka maybe the middle name is blank.)
• Step 6: The resulting database will be a list of possible dead voters. You’ll need to compare these voters with the voting history (make sure to use the earlier date you could cast a ballot) for the past election, which will give you a final list of dead voters.

Finding dead voters is not just about manipulating databases, there is a good amount of legwork involved. Call relatives, track down last known addresses and phone numbers, and double check that the information is true. There have been many cases of journalists reporting voters to be dead when in fact it was just a database error, so make sure your reporting is accurate.

Texas Watchdog can offer much more in-depth information about finding dead voters and they’ll be joining us this Friday at 2pm EST to discuss it for #FOIAchat. I hope to see you there.

Also, little known fact for the below video—they are actually on their way to vote.

Gov transparency during election season

This week on #FOIAchat we’re going to be discussing public records and elections. The King of topics during campaign season is funding, and a lot of states and organizations have done their best to bring this data to you. Here are some of my favorite resources to look up campaign contributions:

• Ballotpedia. They have massive amounts of information on not only candidates, but those behind ballot measures across the state.*
• Project Vote Smart. The site breaks down data in a way that helps you see the issues behind the money.
• Sunlight Foundation’s Transparency Data. Aptly named because there is so much data here. You can see campaign contributions, lobbying, grants, and contracting data.
• Open Secrets. Sunshine Review writers have been using Open Secret’s data for lobbying for years, highly recommend.
• Federal Elections Commission. The site can be hard to navigate, but sometimes you need to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
• Two more recommended by Texas Watchdog: Maplight.org and Follow the money.org.

Another topic we’ll be discussing tomorrow are electronic voting machines. There was surprisingly little resources about this, which is why I’m glad John Washburn, who written blogs about FOIA and electronic voting machines, will be joining us.

Hope to see you there! Also, if you have any suggestions for resources, please leave them in the comments section.

* Disclosure: Ballotpedia is a sister site of ours.

Senator Tom Davis wants transparency for South Carolina

South Carolina Republican Senator Tom Davis has open government for South Carolina on his sights. Stating that the state suffers from closed government and is “among the most secretive in the nation,” the Senator wants to change this.

Unlike many transparency promises from politicians, the Senator has concrete plans for how to approach openness in South Carolina. As far as legislative transparency goes, he would promote legislation mandating on the record voting for every vote taken by either chamber of the legislature. He would also promote stricter disclosure requirements for lawmakers in reporting their income.

Davis also wants all taxpayer-funded expenses at the state and local level to be posted in an online checkbook. The checkbook would be maintained by Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom. As far as the cost is concerned, it “would be paid for many times over by the savings” that come with expanded transparency and accountability.

Davis also sees what we’ve been saying: providing open records at exorbitant costs is akin to not providing the records at all. The effect is the same: the public is kept in the dark. He state “information the taxpayers pay for should always be freely available for them to inspect.” This is the section where Davis’s open government plan is a little more vague. Besides “enacting reform,” it is unclear how information will be free to citizens. Merely stating that can prove to be an unfunded mandate, where local governments need to comply to providing information for free without having allotted resources for the fees associated with searching for, preparing, and delivering the records.

Still, the Senator’s commitment to transparency is laudable. Sunshine Review rates the South Carolina state website at a “B” for the amount of information disclosed, and South Carolina get a combined grade of “D.” Obviously, there’s some room for improvement. Davis’s steps for transparency are a great place to start.

International “Right to Know” day is tomorrow

“International Right to Know” day is tomorrow, and according to FOIA advocates there is only one conference going on in America to celebrate it. FYI, it’s at the Suffolk University Law School to discuss the Massachusetts Public Records Act.

I think we can do better then that. What better way to celebrate our right to know than submitting a FOIA request? I plan on submitting one tomorrow, and I hope that you’ll join me. If you have any questions, here is a list of the Sunshine Laws for every state. Let us know what you are thinking of requesting in the comments.

I’ll start: Going to ask for copies of Mayor Daley’s e-mails for the past 30 days.

Side note: I’m requesting the info in my own time, separate from my work at Sunshine Review.

NJ FOIA’s made affordable by law

Today, Governor Chris Christie signed into law a bill which will lower the fees charged for public records requests. Now letter size documents are capped at $.05, and legal sized at $.07, compared to the previous $0.75 per document.

I can’t believe that the state got away with $0.75 per document prior to this bill. Have you run into fees equal to or lower than this? If so, please let us know in the comments section.

Also, if you’d like to discuss this bill further please make sure to join us and Scott Hodes, from The FOIA blog this Friday on FOIAchat.

H/T: @jlmosebach

Lobbying in IL: The numbers lie

Last week, Sunshine Review released a study showing over $6.2 million in taxpayer-funded lobbying by counties in Illinois. $6.2 million is a lot of money no matter how you look at it, and regardless of the benefits and consequences of taxpayer-funded lobbying, this information should be proactively disclosed: governments should tell citizens upfront how much they’re spending on lobbying, why, and what they’re lobbying for.

The numbers uncovered by Sunshine Review are significant. Even more significant is the fact that they aren’t complete totals for the counties, only partial figures.

For example, one of the most open counties was Champaign County. Champaign was the only county that didn’t find Sunshine Review’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request “unduly burdensome” and sent information for all of the county. Most people don’t consider the sheer size of a county: a county has several departments and agencies, not to mention offices of individual officials. And most counties wont accept a FOIA request for countywide information. But Champaign County accepted my request as a county-wide request, and sent it to all of its departments and offices asking them to comply. This was the only county I did not have to negotiate my request with. For most counties, my original request was cut back greatly after several phone calls and e-mails. Champaign, however, just sent me information, including e-mails between lobbying entities and the county.

Even then, it was unclear whether Champaign has no lobbying contracts or whether they just didn’t send any. Every separate department in the county responded to the individual items I requested, but there was no general letter explaining what was and wasn’t applicable to the county. This is not a complaint about the county’s response, about which I’ve been gushing throughout this blog; rather, it’s a complaint about the complicated, convoluted nature of public records requests for items that should be public in the first place. After requesting lobbying records from counties, I should be able to answer whether a county contracts lobbyists or not. But I can’t, not conclusively.

This uncertainty makes it clear that while our report shows a good picture of lobbying in Illinois counties, it is not a complete picture. And citizens and journalists shouldn’t have to guess where their money goes: governments have a duty to report to us.

In Virginia, your “sacred” “right to know” isn’t respected

Reason Magazine’s Radley Balko draws attention to secrecy at the Fairfax County, Alexandria, and Arlington Police Departments.

The Fairfax, Alexandria, and Arlington police departments are among the least transparent in the country. Their application of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act allows them to turn down nearly all requests for information, as was made clear by a series of reports by reporter Michael Pope.

There is obviously something wrong here. With Freedom of Information Acts, the presumption should be on disclosure. Unlike some instances of information withholding, the officials of these departments seem to be well aware of the fact that they are infringing on citizens’ right to information. Their attitude says it all, according to Balko:

Police were not only stingy with information; they were smug and arrogant about it. When asked why she couldn’t release the name of a Virginia police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man last November, Fairfax County police spokeswoman Mary Ann Jennings replied, “What does the name of an officer give the public in terms of information and disclosure? I’d be curious to know why they want the name of an officer.”

The attitude of the spokeswoman is completely opposed to citizens’ rights. There are exemptions to the Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA), and there are instances where the case can be made for withholding information.

But the department isn’t making a case. It is claiming its authority as an excuse to keep information that is public by its nature secret, such as a public official’s name, because it can. And it doesn’t have to answer to you.

There’s more information to better paint the attitude of these departments:

After [reporter Michael] Pope’s first article on the lack of disclosure, Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Randolph Sengel, the city’s elected chief prosecutor, responded with a sneering, condescending letter to the editor brimming with contempt for outsiders who try to hold law enforcement agencies accountable. “Last time I checked there were multiple safeguards in place to assure the integrity of the criminal justice system,” Sengel wrote. “Conscientious and dedicated judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and law enforcement officers work in a system which is as transparent as it needs to be…The sacred ‘right of the public to know’ is still (barely) governed by standards of reasonableness and civility.”

The “right of the public to know” is in quotes.

The public does have a right to know. And this right is, basically, sacred. The government is directly accountable to taxpayers. While checks are in place within to make sure public bodies act ethically, the most important check is the ability we have as citizens to demand answers from the people we pay to look after our interests.

Here’s hoping the hard work of Virginia reporters, like Mr. Pope, continues shining light on irresponsible police departments’.

Next Page »