Transparency News 11/4/14
State and Local Stories
Ask any longtime friend or associate to recall the late Del. Clifton A. “Chip” Woodrum and the first thing you’ll hear about was his uncanny sense of humor and rapier wit. By profession, Woodrum was a lawyer. As a part-time lawmaker from 1980 through 2003 he balanced a keen mind and legendary manners with a big heart and uncommon good sense. He probably could have been one of America’s top comedians, too. Lesser known is Woodrum’s passion for citizens’ ability to gather and analyze information about the bureaucracies that govern their daily lives. Not only did he advocate for open government, he was one of the Virginia General Assembly’s few champions of it. It’s that trait that will be front and center shortly. The Virginia Coalition for Open Government has announced a new internship named in Woodrum’s honor. Next week, they’ll throw a reception here in Roanoke to raise money to help fund that. During each two-month Virginia General Assembly session, the coalition will hire one college student, part-time, to that year’s Chip Woodrum Legislative Internship. The students selected will have a front-row seat to the legislative process. Al Casteen of the Smithfield District is not pleased to learn about it.
Dan Casey, Roanoke Times
As a reported way to save money, Isle of Wight County ceased advertising legal notices in both The Tidewater News and The Smithfield Times effective this past summer. The notices serve, for example, to inform people when different departments of county government will have public meetings. Instead, since July the notices have been published in The Daily Press, which is based in Newport News.
Tidewater News
The Richmond School Board has formally censured member Tichi L. Pinkney Eppes, of the 9th District, for breaching student confidentiality. During its work session Monday in City Hall, the board formally reprimanded Eppes for sharing confidential student information with a school system vendor in September. In a special meeting Oct. 16, the board agreed to the censure. It was done publicly again to “memorialize” the action during a regularly scheduled meeting.
Times-Dispatch
Local philanthropist David M. Rubenstein announced Saturday that he is giving $10 million to Montpelier, the historic Orange, Va., home of the nation’s fourth president, James Madison. The donation comes on the heels of Rubenstein’s gifts of $5 million to the White House Visitor Center in September and $12.3 million to Arlington House, the home of Robert E. Lee, in July. He also paid $7.5 million of the $15 million cost of the repairs to theWashington Monument after the 2011 earthquake.
Washington Post
David Poole is the executive director of the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in Virginia politics. Poole is a Florida native and a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He founded VPAP in 1997 after a 14-year career as a newspaper reporter. His last assignment was covering state politics for Landmark Communications, which at the time owned The Roanoke Times and The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot.
Times-Dispatch
National Stories
In October, the Pebble Limited Partnership filed its third lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, this time seeking documents Pebble alleges were not turned over through prior Freedom of Information Act requests. The EPA is moving forward to establish restrictions against water use in Bristol Bay in Alaska which will likely prevent development of the Pebble deposit.Alaska Public Media
The Securities and Exchange Commission routinely rejects more than half of all Freedom of Information Act requests for data that could help investors better select investment advisors, even while it allowed a staff economist to use some of the same data in her own published research, a prominent law professor says. Columbia Law School Professor Robert Jackson filed a FOIA request with the SEC last year, seeking years of data on private investment advisors for a project on predicting broker fraud based on past behavior, only to be told the agency didn’t have the information. The SEC requires most investment managers to file an annual Form ADV disclosing conflicts of interest, firm ownership and any civil and criminal penalties for fraud and other violations, but it told Jackson the dataset is actually held and maintained by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a non-governmental organization that oversees brokers.
Forbes
Aaron Landsman figured it would be boring. After all, he was being dragged to a city council meeting. But something unexpected happened at the session that night in Portland, Ore. A man dumped a pile of needles and vials onto a table, offering a quick illustration of how dangerous a park near his home was. He wanted it cleaned up.
That gesture gave Landsman an idea. After attending hearings in several cities, he stitched together the most dramatic moments into a play called “City Council Meeting” that has played in cities such as New York, San Francisco and Keene, N.H. “In the most dry, banal meeting,” he says, “there’d be a moment that was theatrical and moving.”
Governing
“Justice Robin Hudson: not tough on child molesters, not fair to victims,” intoned an ominous ad meant to smear a North Carolina judge up for reelection next week. Hudson is one of many judges who have found themselves up against surprisingly well-financed campaigns and the TV spots that come with them. In the past decade or so, the amount of money thrown into judicial campaigns has increased tenfold—and apparently, so has the vitriol. Political donors have realized that a donation to a state supreme court campaign brings higher yields than a donation to a state legislator's campaign: It’s more expensive to change who's passing the laws—often more than 100 people—than to change the handful of individuals who interpret them. When the campaign-finance levees broke after the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, money rushed in to judicial elections—and that money may be subtly changing the way judges deliberate.
Governing
