Oklahoma Gubernatorial Candidates Support Applying Open Records Act to Legislature

The Oklahoman reports all six candidates to succeed Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry have said they support making the state's Open Records Act applicable to the Legislature.

Oklahoma is one of only nine other states that have wholly exempted legislative records from open records laws. In some states, records maintained by individual lawmakers are considered confidential, but the records maintained by the legislative bodies and committees are open.

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Missing e-mails show up in criminal investigation

E-mails not provided to The Palm Beach Post in regards to a request for e-mails sent and received by former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom turned up during his criminal investigation, Post on Politics reported. The House had told the newspaper that Sansom didn't send or receive a single e-mail in the 11-day period for which records were requested. However, prosecutors' files included correspondence from that time. Officials say those "non-existent" e-mails might have come from Sansom's personal e-mail account or they might have been deleted e-mails that investigators uncovered.

A criminal investigation of former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom, recently indicted on charges of falsifying the state budget, has turned up e-mails related to the scandal that supposedly did not exist when The Palm Beach Post requested the documents from the legislature.

The Post asked Sansom’s office Dec. 10 to turn over the previous 20 days of e-mails that the Destin Republican had either sent and received. The request was made to gauge public reaction to news that Sansom may have received a six-figure job from Northwest Florida State College in exchange for funneling millions of state dollars to the school.

The Post also sought messages between Sansom and then-college President James “Bob” Richburg about the scandal.

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Groups win access to Calif. lawmakers database

The California First Amendment Coalition and MAPLight.org won access to a machine-readable state lawmakers database in its settlement with the Office of Legislative Counsel of California, the California Chronicle reported. The previous form of the database hindered analysis. After the lawsuit was filed, the Office of Legislative Counsel unrolled a "structured database" on its Web site, which can be downloaded by anyone at www.leginfo.ca.gov. MAPLight.org plans to use the structured database to create MAPLight.org California, which will "combine all money given to members of the California state legislature with how each politician votes on every bill, revealing patterns of money and influence never before possible to see."

The California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) and MAPLight.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that shows the connection between money and politics, announce today that they have settled their freedom of information lawsuit against the Office of Legislative Counsel of California, having gained the object of their suit: a machine-readable database of how state lawmakers vote.

"It shouldn't take a lawsuit for the government to realize its data belongs to the people," said Daniel Newman, MAPLight.org's executive director. "In this new era of highlighting transparency, we hope this settlement serves as an example to city and state governments across the country to provide public access to public information."

California Legislative data, including how lawmakers vote, legislation in progress, and laws, was previously available to the public only in a plain-text format on the California Legislative Information website. That data was suitable for viewing and printing, but only allowed access to Legislative data at a rate of one bill at a time, making analysis lengthy and cumbersome.

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