Free Republic

The California Assembly says the public has no right to see lawmakers' current office budgets and spending projections, documents that could show whether punishment is doled out for key votes.

RICHMOND – Delegate Bob Marshall needs to severely revamp two bills he’s introduced in reaction to the University of Virginia withholding controversial climate change research, members of a House subcommittee told him Thursday. The Manassas Republican wants public employees to be fired if they willfully withhold documents that are subject to disclosure via the Freedom of Information Act. His target: UVA employees who withheld climate change documents from him last year. But the bill Marshall offered before the FOIA/procurement subcommittee of the House general laws committee contains language he didn’t intend. It allows a judge to terminate the employment of...

Article Launched: 12/22/2006 04:38:28 PM MST WASHINGTON -- Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi cited the need to preserve the ''dignity and decorum'' of the House as she rejected a request Friday that C-SPAN operate its own cameras in covering the chamber. The public service network has provided gavel-to-gavel television coverage of House proceedings since 1979. But the House leader has kept control of the cameras, with coverage generally limited to tight shots of the speaker or the podium. The situation is similar in the Senate, which C-SPAN has televised since 1986. C-SPAN's chairman and chief executive told Pelosi, D-Calif., that under this...

Sunshine Laws Exposing Anti-Freedom Illegality And Stupidity For Fun And Profit by Jim March Email Introduction "Sunshine laws" are rules that allow public inquiry into government affairs. "Open meeting laws" such as California's "Brown Act" force public access to the decision-making processes of government bodies, both on paper and in person, while the Federal "Freedom Of Information Act" (FOIA) and it's state-level relatives (Public Records Act in California (1)) force most government documents to be "public record" and available for inspection or copying by any citizen or legal resident alien who asks (2). We're going to focus on the use...