Audit finds 59 violations of Missouri’s Sunshine Law

Sometimes people ask how we came to our transparency checklist items, and we’re always pretty surprised because we think they are self evident (however you can find the full rational here). I find this especially true for are audits.

Recently, Missouri’s auditor found out that there had been 59 Sunshine Law compliance problem between 2008 and 2009. Over 45 governmental bodies were reported having issues with meeting minutes and agendas; 30 reported problems with minutes for closed meetings; and 18 failed to provide justification for a closed meetings.

Have you seen this type of thing in your state? What’s the juiciest scandal your auditor has found?

Tester proposes putting public records online

You know what I love? Proactive disclosure. I think there is no downside to just publishing government information right on the web. It’s convenient, fast, and cuts down on the whole FOIA hassle.

Which is why it is so exciting that Sen. Jon Tester-D introduced a bill that would require government agencies to publish all their public documents online in a free, indexed database.

But why stop at the three federal branches? America would see just as much benefits from state agency participation, something we’ve already seen in a few states like, Missouri.

Missouri tries to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying

In Missouri, there’s a bill that would end the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying. Representative Shane Schoeller’s bill would prohibit any entity that accepts tax dollars from using that money to influence the passage or defeat of legislation.

Schoeller, R-Willard, filed the legislation last year in response to the Missouri Department of Transportation sending 20 employees to the Capitol pressure legislators to pass a primary seat belt law on taxpayer time. Legislators ultimately did not support the bill, partially because the agency’s tactics annoyed them.

The bill would not outright ban recipients of tax dollars from hiring lobbyists, but the lobbyists would be forbidden from influencing legislators to vote a certain way on a bill. “You can monitor, you can educate, but you can’t advocate,” said Schoeller. The legislation would work by penalizing any registered lobbyist who accepted tax dollars to advocate a position by barring them from lobbying for up to two years, and by fining governments from $1,000 to $5,000 for using tax dollars to pay for a lobbyist.

Lobbyist Randy Scherr said it would be virtually impossible to allow lobbyists to educate a lawmaker on an issue while forbidding them from advocating a position, noting that the distinction between “education” and “advocacy” is nonexistent. It isn’t just the lobbyists that don’t think the bill will work. Representative David Day, R-Dixon.”I support the concept, I really do. But I don’t think it will change much.”

The doubts are consistent with the broad nature of lobbying. It is difficult and next to impossible to remove influence from the legislative process, since it can take many forms. Schoeller said he doubts his bill will be included in the final product. While the cause of ending the practice does seem lofty, the proposed bill has brought taxpayer-funded lobbying to the the forefront. A start would be increased transparency in the process. For example, out of the 54 Missouri counties with websites, none of them have lobbying information on their websites. If these counties were to post their lobbying information online, such as contracts with lobbyists, membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, and check registers for payments to these, there wouldn’t even need to be legislation protecting taxpayers from overzealous governments: taxpayers could look out after themselves.