Titus is top mass mail spender

She always did make a big deal about being on the top of every bad list…

Nevada Rep. Dina Titus is the biggest user of House-funded mass mailings and teleconferences, according to an Associated Press review that concluded freshman lawmakers in tight re-election races were most likely to be using taxpayer money to promote themselves to constituents.

Titus, a Democrat, spent $470,059.25 on communications last year, the AP found after reviewing House documents.

Her spokesman claims it is because her district has over one million constituents. However, as the AP notes, "Titus' spending is more than the combined spending of House members representing 5.7 million people in Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming."

Check out the disbursements page on TransparentNevada to learn more about how Titus and her colleagues spend taxpayer money.

Education task force opens up

A win for transparency:

Leaders of Gov. Jim Gibbons' Education Reform Blue Ribbon Task Force decided Thursday to hold all of their meetings in public.

Task force co-chair Dan Klaich said he and co-chair Elaine Wynn decided all meetings will be in public and conducted in places where the media and citizens can easily attend.

Even though the task force belatedly came to the correct decision, it shouldn't have taken this long. The task force should have avoided this controversy by holding open meetings to begin with.

In all matters relating to government, transparency should be the default position. Attorneys in the Governor's office should have used their time to help the task force accommodate open meeting laws instead of finding legal loopholes around them.

Clark County responds to failing grade

Responding to the abysmal grade given to Clark County's website by Sunshine Review …

Erik Pappa, director of Public Communications for Clark County, said the Clark County website hasn’t received a significant overhaul in “over a decade” and that the information reported by the Sunshine Review “confirms a lot of what we already knew.”

As a result of the website’s increasing importance, with 4.9 million visitors accessing the site in 2009, Clark County is in the process of redesigning the website and, according to Pappa, will consider the suggestions made by the Sunshine Review when determining updates.

Pappa is considering plans to include more information on local taxes, budget reports and contact information for public records requests. He goes on to predict a "substantial improvement" of their grade in a year's time.

The first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem and so I applaud Pappa for doing that. But lip service is not enough.

To better serve Clark County residents and to improve its grade for next year, Clark County needs to make the improvements it so easily talks about.

(Thanks NNB)

ACLU challenges Governor's task force

The Nevada chapter of the ACLU is challenging Governor Gibbons's claim that his recently created education task force is exempt from Nevada's open meeting laws:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada says the meetings of Gov. Jim Gibbons’ Blue Ribbon Task Force on Education should be open to the public.

Keeping the meetings closed is a violation of Nevada’s Open Meeting Law, which could be a misdemeanor, says Margaret A. McLetchie, interim southern program director of the ACLU.

Elizabeth Crum over at the Nevada News Bureau makes an excellent point:

My question is this: Why not open the meetings up regardless of the legalities? What possible reason could there be for keeping these meetings closed? If the purpose of the panel is to (1) help the state figure out how to competently process its way through the Race to the Top application and (2) come up with ideas to reform our sorry educational system, why can’t the public sit in?

The Legislature created Nevada's open meeting statutes to ensure transparency and accountability in state government. While a lawyer might be able to find some legal loophole that exempts this task force, why would they want to do that? If this task force ultimately makes education recommendations to the Governor, the public should see how the task force came to its decisions.

Our leaders need to reject the idea that the public is best served by keeping the decision making process in the dark.

Education task force meets in secret

What are they hiding?

Gov. Jim Gibbons declared this week that Nevada’s future education policy will emerge from a blue ribbon task force he created by executive order.

Despite its potential bearing on key public policy, that task force’s first meeting, scheduled for [last Friday], and possibly its future meetings, will be held behind closed doors.

George Taylor, a senior deputy attorney general, argues that because the Governor is not subject to open meeting laws, any panel he creates is also not subject to them.

While this may be correct according to the letter of the law, it clearly violates the spirit of the law and good government practices. The statutes dealing with open meetings state "... all public bodies exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly."

The task force should open up future meetings. If it is suppose to be fixing public education, shouldn't the public be able to see what it's doing?

Give me earmarks or give me death!

For as much as they are derided, Senators do love their earmarks:

The Senate on Tuesday soundly rejected efforts to impose a ban on congressional earmarks, throwing a wrench in House efforts to significantly curtail pet projects this election year.

With 15 Republicans joining most Senate Democrats, the Senate rejected by a 29-68 vote an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that would have established a one-year moratorium on earmarks. The measure, proponents said, would restore trust in Congress at a time when ethical controversies involving earmarks have roiled Capitol Hill.

The Sunlight Foundation has been making the case that the answer is not earmark bans but greater earmark transparency. Agreed.

What Congress really needs to do is pass real earmark reform. Earmark reform that makes the process totally transparent and encoded in rules or laws. Committee imposed rules or bans can easily be changed or circumvented — this includes the committee’s imposed rules on earmark transparency.

Congress will always find a way to wriggle out of outright bans. That is just the way it is. They will shift money around or ask colleagues to request it to "hide the money trail." Emphasizing transparency will eliminate these loopholes.

Failing grades for county websites

Not much to be proud of here:

Nevada’s county websites have received a collective grade of “F” from Sunshine Review, a non-profit organization that promotes transparency from both state and local governments.

The grade is part of Sunshine Review’s My Government Website project, which ambitiously aims to evaluate the transparency websites of each city, county, school district and state agency in the nation. The Sunshine Review grades the sites by determining whether each site has adequate information in ten areas: budgets, meetings, elected officials, administrative officials, audits, lobbying, public records, building permits and zoning, public records and taxes.

You can view the results here.

Washoe County received the only passable grade of the bunch with a B minus. Nye County got a C minus and it is downhill after that. Churchill, Douglas, Elko, Humboldt and Lyon counties all got D minuses. Clark, Esmeralda, Eureka, Lander, Lincoln, Mineral, Pershing, Storey and White Pine all got big fat F's.

If the counties receiving F's do any worse next year maybe we'll need to give them the grade of E for "Evading accountability."

Report gives mixed score to President's transparency push

Another day, another "mixed report card" on the President's transparency push:

But a new report released Sunday by a private research group, the National Security Archive, suggests that the results of Mr. Obama’s push for transparency have been decidedly mixed across the federal government, with progress slow and erratic.

The report found that despite Mr. Obama’s directive for agencies to take “affirmative steps” to make more information public through the Freedom of Information Act, many agencies do not appear to have made any concrete changes. It also found little indication that most federal agencies were releasing information any more frequently or rejecting public requests for information any less often. (Emphasis mine)

Even Norm Eisen, the special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, admitted that "there's much more to do" and "it will probably take another year before the changes are fully seen."

Why will it take another year, Mr. Eisen? Why wasn't more done this past year? Will you be saying the same thing next year?

This should all have been done by now. If agency heads are impeding transparency efforts, they need to be fired immediately. If agencies are missing deadlines, heads need to roll. If FOIA requests are languishing in the system, make people responsible for clearing them out. Enough excuses, enough delays, enough broken promises. Fix it now.

You can read the report here.

That famous D.C. stench

Great editorial today in Roll Call on the recently concluded ethics investigation into improper ties between the lobbying firm PMA Group and seven House members who were cleared of any wrongdoing.

In clearing all seven, the committee asserted it had reviewed nearly 250,000 pages of documents and conducted interviews with "numerous witnesses." But Roll Call contacted numerous firms and Member offices that would have been logical sources of information for the committee — and found that not a single one had been contacted or asked for documents.

This is like writing a book report without reading the book or voting on legislation without having read it. No one can do a good job in those circumstances.

The House should examine what actions — if any — the ethics committee took in preparing the report that cleared the seven House lawmakers. If it issued this report without interviewing the key parties, the public must call its ability to police the House of Representatives into question.

Rep. Frank invites C-SPAN to Capitol Hill

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) wants C-SPAN to broadcast the House and Senate conference meeting on proposed finance reform bills.

The type of "old-fashioned" conference Frank is talking about is a real rarity in today’s Congress. House and Senate negotiators would debate the points of disagreement between the two chambers, voting point-by-point in open session – an open session that Frank would like broadcast on C-SPAN for all the world to see.

While his primarily motivations are undoubtedly political — he wants TV cameras to catch Republicans opposing the expansion of politically popular financial regulation — this is still a good idea and one that should be used on other bills as well.

Neither the stimulus bill nor the health care bill had anywhere near this kind of transparency in their deal making stages. The health care bill especially — with its noxious inclusion of the "Cornhusker Kickback" and "Louisiana Purchase" provisions — would have benefited greatly from a more open process.

Seeking the Governor's emails

I wonder if he's trying to hide anything:

Gov. Jim Gibbons believes that traffic through his state-issued e-mail account is not public.

And he maintains that he should not be required to reveal a list of the names, dates and a brief subject of these e-mail messages.

But the Reno Newspapers says this traffic on the state-issue e-mail account is subject to the Nevada’s Open Records law.

The Nevada Supreme Court hears arguments Monday whether to overturn the decision of District Judge Todd Russell who sided with the governor.

Let's hope the Court acknowledges the importance open records laws and grants the public access to the Governor's state-issued e-mail account.

Rangel steps down for now

How the mighty have fallen:

New York Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel stepped down from his post atop the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee today pending the completion of several ethics investigations into his conduct.

The pending ethics investigations include his role in obtaining four rent-controlled apartments in New York City, using his office to raise money for the Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York and a failure to disclose rental income from a Dominican Republic apartment. All these follow his admonishment last week for accepting corporate-funded trips to the Caribbean.

He has only agreed to step down temporarily, until the pending investigations are complete. He no doubt assumes he will be vindicated and hopes to re-gain his position as Chair eventually.

While he should have stepped down months ago, this is a step in the right direction. Being in charge of the tax-writing committee is a huge responsibility with enormous power and the People need to trust that the chairman is both honest and ethical. With these investigations, that trust has been damaged if not entirely lost.

Rangel admonished by ethics panel

Looks like the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history has taken another hit:

The House ethics committee said on Thursday that it had admonished Representative Charles B. Rangel for violating Congressional gift rules by accepting corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008.

Right on cue, Pelosi stepped up to defend her ethically challenged colleague:

Ms. Pelosi did say she had not read the findings of the House ethics committee, which determined that he violated Congressional gift rules by accepting corporate-sponsored trips in 2007 and 2008. But she parsed the ruling a bit differently than the panel itself, saying it didn’t find that he had knowledge of the sponsorships himself. “And I think that’s an important statement they made,” she said.

They both claim that because he wasn't personally aware of the nature of the trips, he shouldn't be held responsible. This, of course, is nonsense. Two members of his staff were aware and he is the one ultimately in charge.

Even liberals such as Markos Moulitsas have called for him to be stripped of his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. Unfortunately this will never happen because Rangel is politically untouchable:

In Rangel’s case, the particular issue has to do with the Congressional Black Caucus, of which he is a founding member. For understandable reasons, the CBC tends to be sensitive when it comes to gavels and committee assignments. Historically, many of its members – like Rangel – have relied on the seniority system for their political status and power. The idea of removing a CBC member from a choice assignment or bypassing a CBC member for a plum opening is not to be considered lightly.

Pelosi would be wise to re-consider her support of Rangel. Pelosi ran hard against Republican corruption and was rewarded with control of the House in 2006. If she doesn't remove this albatross soon, expect Republicans to run similarly hard on the issue and potentially achieve the same outcome.

You can read the report here.