The Opposition Research Training Blog

Virginia HB 2125 Virginia Freedom of Information Act; requests for records.

Virginia Freedom of Information Act; requests for records. Provides that FOIA requests may be made by any citizen of the United States and not just citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The bill also allows a public body to require prepayment before providing requested records when the cost for production of the records is likely to exceed $100.

Currently in Committee on General Laws.

Bob McDonnell Going After Felon Vote For Republicans

Several Virginia papers and the Washington Post are running an AP story about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell setting a faster pace in restoring the right to vote to non-violent felons in the Commonwealth than his predecessor Tim Kaine. The Post story is titled “Law-and-order Gov. Bob McDonnell sets record pace for restoring civil rights of former felons.” I am not sure what “former felons” means but I was shocked by what I learned in the article.

AP writes “McDonnell took office in 2010 and, with little fanfare, charged his administration with accelerating the process, vetting applicants through the secretary of the commonwealth, Janet Vestal Kelly, and his legal counsel, then providing applicants a response within 60 days.” It is almost unbelievable that convicted felons can get an answer from the Governor in 60 days.  Law abiding citizens of the Commonwealth appear to have taken a back seat to McDonnell’s “Restore the Vote, No Felon Left Behind” program.

The Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) has responsibility for creating and updating regulations governing the criminal justice system in Virginia. A system that includes at least 41,000 private security registrants, including security officers, K-9 handlers, private investigators, and locksmiths, who make their living protecting the private sector in Virginia. On December 22, 2010 DCJS submitted a “Comprehensive Revision - Regulations Relating to Private Security Services” to the Governor’s office for approval. The regulations have sat in the Governor’s office for 1 year 4 months and 16 days or 502 days total.

These regulations have a real impact of small business and the jobs of law abiding citizens. It is a shame McDonnell values the votes of convicted felons over the hard working people of Virginia.

FOIA Guide for Local Government Leaders

The Virginia Municipal League publishes an excellent FOIA guide to help local government leaders understand and meet their obligations under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. The handbook is revised yearly.

The Virginia Freedom of Information Act, Virginia Conflict of Interest Act and the 
Virginia Public Records Act 2011-2012 Edition Guide for Local Government Leaders can be found here. The handbook also provides sample Statement of Economic Interest, Financial Disclosure Statement, and Disclosure of Real Estate Holdings forms.

The Code of Virginia, For Humans

Researchers who regularly search the Code of  Virginia using Virginia’s Legislative Information System know it can be a nightmare at times. Virginia Decoded is an excellent resource created by Waldo Jaquith, an open government technologist. The site displays the code in a more user friendly fashion and seems to have a more robust search engine. In addition to the code,  sections contain historical legislative information as well as amendment attempts, the correct cite for the law, and relevant court cases.

Supreme Court’s Vision of Transparency a Failure

Believing shareholders could address issues of corporate political speech through corporate democracy and citizens through disclosure, Justice Kennedy writing the opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (08-205) claimed:

The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.

Restore Our Future, a Super PAC backing Mitt Romney, announced a $3.1 million ad campaign in Iowa this month. The group was obligated to file a Form 3X disclosure report identifying donors on Dec. 22, which is 12 days before the Iowa caucus. Restore Our Future notified the Federal Election Commission it was switching to a monthly schedule. The switch avoids the requirement for a December report and allows Restore Our Future to disclose after the Iowa Caucuses.

The simplistic view taken by the Supreme Court justices failed to take into account the the FEC commissioners responsible for writing regulations overseeing Super PACs are paralyzed by partisan politics and incapable of completing even the most elementary tasks. Nearly two years after the Citizens United decision the FEC has failed to bring forth any cohesive regulations concerning Super PACs.

For Supreme Court Justices to allow billions of corporate dollars to shape elections under the premise the impact of the money is offset by the transparency of disclosure, under rules and regulations designed by those receiving the billions of dollars, is laughable at best. The Supreme Court failed the people of Iowa, the FEC continues to fail us all.

Dem. lawmaker proposes repeal of Legislative Open Records Act - latimes.com

A Democratic legislator has proposed repealing a long-standing law that government watchdogs have argued protects the Legislature from public disclosure.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

More transparency in the California Legislature is definitely a good thing. It will be interesting to see if this bill ever makes it out of committee. I am betting it won't.

Federal Judge Expands Citizens United Decision

On Tuesday Federal District Court Judge James Cacheris affirmed his recent ruling in U.S. v. Danielczyk et al  ending a century-old ban on direct corporate contributions to political candidates. Cacheris struck one of the charges against William Danielczyk, head of the Virginia-based Galen Capital Group, and Eugene Biagi, a fellow executive. The two men are charged with multiple counts of illegally reimbursing people for nearly $200,000 in contributions to Hillary Clinton’s 2006 U.S. Senate and 2008 presidential races.

Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission  Cacheris wrote in his original decision:

“If human beings can make direct campaign contributions within FECA’s limits without risking quid pro quo corruption or its appearance, and if, in Citizens United’s interpretation of Bellotti, corporations and human beings are entitled to equal political speech rights, then corporations must also be able to contribute within FECA’s limits.”

In what looks like a feeble attempt to try and limit the damage the ruling has done, Cacheris attempts to foster the bizarre notion that his ruling applies only to the company involved in the case before him. He concluded:

“For these reasons, the Court will deny reconsideration
except to clarify its May 26, 2011 ruling to state that 2 U.S.C.
§ 441b (a)'s flat ban on direct corporate contributions to political campaigns is unconstitutional as applied to the circumstances of this case, as opposed to being unconstitutional as applied to all corporate donations.”

The government’s next step would be to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond.

Documents don’t back legislators’ HB477 claims

As Utah lawmakers argued why they needed the now-repealed HB477 to shield more records from public release, leaders repeatedly said their staffers had been swamped by records requests in 2010 and spent more than 400 hours filling them.

But an open-records request from The Salt Lake Tribune shows the Legislature can produce no records to substantiate that claim, and attorneys now say it was an estimate. Related records that do exist suggest that the estimate may have been high.

via www.sltrib.com

Now we see why Utah legislators are so quick to want to change Utah's open records laws. The Salt Lake Tribune did an excellent job of using open records requests to show that legislators were using wildly inflated numbers to justify their claims that the Government Records Access and Management Act needed to be changed.

It should be clear by now, politicians have never met privacy legislation they didn't like.They are more than willing to cloud transparency through diluting disclosure laws or banning access to information outright, even if it means fudging the numbers a bit.

Politics and public money: SCOTUSblog

At 10 a.m. Monday, the Supreme Court will hold one hour of oral argument on the constitutionality of using public funds to subsidize political candidates — a case with broad implications for campaign finance.  Two consolidated cases from Arizona (10-238 and 10-239) are under review.  Arguing for the challengers to subsidies will be William R. Maurer, a Seattle attorney with a legal advocacy group, the Institute for Justice.   Arguing for the state of Arizona will be Bradley S. Phillips of the Los Angeles office of Munger Tolles & Olson.  He will share 10 minutes of time with William M. Jay, an assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General, speaking for the federal government as amicus.

via www.scotusblog.com

Please take a look at this excellent post by Lyle Denniston on his SCOTUS Blog. He does a very good job of explaining this complicated and very important case. This court seems poised to side with the wealthy in a campaign finance case again.

Utah Legislature repeals HB477

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah Legislature voted in a special session Friday to repeal House Bill 477, the bill that redefined and narrowed Utah's open records law.

via www.standard.net

After a lot of back and forth between the House and the Senate, legislators voted to repeal HB477. This is not the end of this by any means. The original sponsors of the bill have learned that by trying to do everything in one bill they drew to much attention to the process. I predict that by this time next year the basic premise of HB477 will be in place having been fashioned though a series of smaller bills designed to chip away at the open records laws in Utah.