The current law, which took effect five years ago, is "broader than it needs to be," said Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort. "We need to err on the side of transparency in oversight of government."
"There are some legitimate restrictions on data, such as patients' names and specific medical conditions, said Davis, who had not been elected when the law passed. "We have to protect those, but also be careful not to throw the baby out with bath water and provide no transparency. The law needs to be more narrowly drawn."
Get the full story here.
Former staffers for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said they routinely used private e-mail accounts to discuss sensitive political and policy decisions with Sanford.More here.
The governor's office denies the practice was used to shield those communications from the public.
The state's Freedom of Information Act makes any discussion of state business on state computers a public document.
Anderson Independent-Mail is questioning if Gov. Mark Sanford's trips (to China, Germany, Poland, London and Brazil) benefited South Caroline and why they were so over the top, considering that Sanford paints himself as a frugal man.
As evidenced by travel records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, Gov. Mark Sanford wasn’t as tight with taxpayer dollars as one might have expected for the man who slept on a cot in his congressional office and spoke so forcefully against accepting federal stimulus money for our state.
During his first campaign for governor, in fact, one of Sanford’s campaign points was criticism of travel expenses for other state officials, according to The Associated Press.
One has to wonder if the question of expenses would have even been raised had there not been so much dismay over how much some of those travels have cost the state in other ways. And how much they have cost him personally.
More here.
FOI at Work!
The State received almost 600 pages of e-mail and phone records from Gov. Mark Sanford and hi staff during the governor's secret June 18-24 trip to Argentina to visit his lover. Staffers downplayed the governor's disappearance, and chief of staff, Scott English, made 15 calls to the governor's cell -- none of which were picked up. Also, several media organizations pleaded with Joel Sawyer, Sanford's communication director, for an exclusive -- and positive -- interview. (Also see Media Outlets Offered to Spin Sanford Story here.)
Gov. Mark Sanford’s chief of staff, Scott English, called the governor’s cell phones 15 times during the governor’s secret trip to Argentina to visit his lover last month. But the governor never picked up.
Meanwhile Sanford’s communications director, Joel Sawyer, worked to minimize the fact the governor had been out of touch with his staff for about four days.
Records released Monday show Sawyer juggled e-mails and media calls from around the nation, giving a consistent message that was later proven to be untrue.
More here.
When it comes to online access to state government records in Minnesota, the state is, well, slightly above average.More here.
A survey by journalists and others found that 65 percent of the records checked were available online, compared to the national average of about 60 percent.
While more and more government records are available with a few mouse clicks, Tennessee still does not provide some important state records and reports for free online.More here.
A nationwide survey of state government information online found Tennessee, like many states, has no comprehensive database for state spending and doesn't put a variety of inspection reports online, including those for hospitals, child care centers and school buses and buildings.
Coloradans can get a wide range of public records online at no charge, ranging from school test results to hospital inspection reports. But some key information is harder to find.There's no single online source for school bus safety inspection reports, for example. And although death certificates are available online, it costs $9 more than getting them by mail or in person.
More here.
Public records easy to get in Arizona, study says, azfamily.com
When it comes to providing public records online, Arizona is one of the best in the nation. A study by several journalism organizations found Arizona to be among the top 15 states in the nation for posting records on the internet. More here.
Many of South Carolina's agencies are providing online access to public records - part of what appears to be a nationwide push to draw attention to the public's right to know what's going on in government.More here.
Still, a new study shows that South Carolina trails 21 others that post more records online.
An analysis by a Charleston newspaper shows that South Carolina health and environmental regulators have imposed about $55 million in fines for pollution violations since 1991.More here.
The Post and Courier reported Tuesday that it reviewed 17 years of records from the Department of Health and Environmental Control that included more than 6,000 violations.
The records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act shows the state issues about 350 civil citations a year for about $3 million in fines.
Trying to track down a legislator's voting record might be a little like chasing Bigfoot: First, you have to find out if it really exists.Open-government advocates argue the state Legislature's lack of roll-call votes — revealed in a new study — is designed so that legislators have "plausible deniability" when comes to taking a stance on controversial bills.
South Carolina's legislative leaders, though, say they and their colleagues want to be on record when it comes to important bills, that taking roll call on procedural matters would clog the system and cost money. Besides, they reason, a bill that passes without a roll-call vote indicates unanimous support on the House and Senate floors.
Further, the South Carolina Policy Council's analysis of roll-call votes on its own is misleading, legislators say.
What the conservative think tank found is that the House called roll on 8 percent of the bills that became law this year, while the Senate did so only 1 percent of the time. That practice is at odds with standards in most states nationally and in South Carolina's neighboring states.
Gov. Mark Sanford's office did not hesitate in condemning the Legislature.
"It's a shocking lack of accountability," the governor's press secretary, Joel Sawyer, said. "Our entire system is built upon this idea of people standing up and being counted and then being held accountable for their actions come November.
More here.
South Carolina last week became the latest in a growing number of states to make the names of people who have a license to carry a concealed weapon a state secret.Five other states might not be far behind in a battle that pits a public policy of open government against the right of people to keep their gun ownership records private.
Bills that would make concealed gun permit records confidential have been introduced in eight other states this year — Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — according to Janna Goodwin of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
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