N.C. county in turmoil over sheriff who made racist remarks, was suspended and re-elected; state investigating election

UPDATE, Dec. 29: "Almost immediately after he was sworn in Thursday morning for what is supposed to be a four-year term, the local district attorney filed a petition in court seeking — for the second time — to have Greene permanently removed from office, the Durham Herald-Sun reports. Greene's swearing-in was "delayed by post-election protests and clouded by state and federal investigations," notes The News Reporter, which published the DA's petition.

Columbus County in North Carolina

Columbus County, North Carolina, continues its heated debate over Sheriff Jody Greene. The conflict began in September, "when a phone recording from 2019 was released to the media. During the call, Greene called deputies 'Black bastards' and threatened to fire those he believed were aligned with the previous sheriff who contested his 2018 win," reports Ivey Schofield of the Border Belt Independent, a nonprofit started by Les High, former owner of The News Reporter, a weekly in the county.

The anger at Greene, the county's first Republican sheriff, is not limited to his racist statement. Jon David, a Republican and prosecutor in Columbus County, "filed an amended petition to the court on Oct. 21 outlining several other allegations against Greene," Schofield writes. "They include having an affair with a detective in the sheriff’s office, firing a Black sergeant, trying to influence county commissioners and failing to ensure proper supervision at the jail." A judge suspended Greene, who resigned but was re-elected shortly thereafter.

The latest grind is the "election board’s ruling to deny two protests" requesting a hearing to determine if Greene was qualified to seek re-election. "Greene, who was suspended and then resigned in October as the county’s first Republican sheriff, won another term with 54% of the vote." The two residents have filed an appeal with the State Board of Elections.

The board "is investigating two complaints of potential intimidation of poll workers," Schofield reports. "Three precincts on Election Day had malfunctioning equipment and subsequently turned away voters. In response, the state board decided to keep one precinct open late."

Schofield writes, "The local NAACP held a meeting to discuss next steps. The meeting was advertised as a public event by the Columbus County Democratic Party, but a Border Belt Independent reporter who tried to attend was asked to leave by one of the greeters." She writes that Rev. Andy Anderson, who attended the meeting, told her "that the group discussed strategies to engage Columbus County residents across racial and economic divides."

Investigation: S.C.'s poor ethical oversight has let small-town corruption flourish, especially in news deserts

This February, The Post and Courier partnered with dozens of smaller South Carolina newspapers for a yearlong project aimed at filling gaps in public accountability, especially those left by expanding local news deserts. The latest entry in the "Uncovered" series shows how the Charleston paper partnered with 17 community papers to expose how the state's inadequate ethical oversight system has allowed corruption to flourish in small towns, especially those with poor news coverage. Examples: 

• A rural school superintendent had an expensive travel habit, spending thousands of dollars without the school board's permission on out-of-state trips with student groups.
• Mysterious health problems made residents in Summerton afraid to drink the tap water. It turns out the local water tank was slowly filling with sludge because it hadn't been cleaned in years, and no one in charge noticed. A town council member's company was meant to be working on the system, but he didn't notify colleagues or publicly disclose his ties, and allegedly falsified logbooks and allowed equipment to fall into disrepair.
• A convicted felon was improperly elected to city council, then kept collecting a salary and traveling using local government funding even after he had been suspended from office. His travels came at a time when the city could barely afford to cover payroll.

Interior watchdog office limits interactions with news media

The Interior Department's internal watchdog is investigating six Interior officials for potential ethics violations, including Secretary David Bernhardt and former Secretary Ryan Zinke, but won't be sharing any details with the press. A new policy in the Office of Inspector General prohibits its press office from providing journalists with any information beyond "Our work speaks for itself" or "We have no comment," Miranda Green reports for The Hill.

"The policy, which took effect Aug. 5, is a change from the previous practice of sometimes providing reporters with background or additional information," Green reports. "The policy change comes under the leadership of acting Inspector General Gail Ennis."

Ennis, a former partner at a law firm whose clients lobbied Interior, has risen quickly. President Trump appointed her Social Security Administration inspector general early this year, then added the Interior role in May. "Unlike most IG officials, who are usually career government employees, Ennis is a political appointee who previously contributed to Trump’s campaign," Green reports.

It's unclear whether Ennis's permanent replacement, Mark Lee Greenblatt, will continue the press policy when he assumes the role in the coming weeks, Green reports.

Rural weekly investigates how Oregon legislator has scored multiple government contracts for his private business

Oregon state Rep. Greg Smith
(Mid-Valley Media photo by Mark Ylen) 

The Malheur Enterprise in rural Oregon has won multiple awards for watchdog journalism; now, editor-publisher Les Zaitz and his team are at it again. They recently published an article, the third in a series, on how state legislator Greg Smith has been able to score multiple government contracts for his private business.

Smith, R-Heppner, wears many hats. As a state representative, he serves on nine legislative committees and leads three, earning $31,200 a year. He also has a full-time job directing Eastern Oregon University's Small Business Development Center, and a second full-time job as executive director of a group redeveloping the U.S. Army's Umatilla Chemical Depot. Since he took office in 2001, "he has stacked one government contract atop another," Zaitz, Pat Caldwell and Kristine de Leon report.

"He uses his influence in the Legislature ­– he is dean of the House ­– to benefit those who retain him, pushing through millions of dollars in state allocations," the Enterprise reports. Its three-month probe, for which Smith refused to comment, "untangled his public service and his private contracts through government documents and interviews, revealing an empire funded by public money."

Smith has "made no secret" of his roles and has occasionally sought guidance from the state ethics commission. But some county officials say there's no way Smith can ethically reconcile his conflicts of interest, and wonder why there isn't more state oversight, the Enterprise reports.

The rural weekly demonstrated its willingness to take on state-level corruption in 2017 with its "Deadly Decisions" package, which revealed that a mental hospital improperly released a patient who went on to commit two murders. The package earned the Enterprise--and Zaitz--multiple national awards, including the Tom and Pat Gish Award from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and the 2017 Investigative Reporters & Editors Award in the Freedom of Information category. Largely on the strength of that package, ProPublica chose the Enterprise as one of only seven newsrooms nationwide (out of 239 applicants) for the first generation of its Local Reporting Network.

Pennsylvania town tries rare lawsuit to oust supervisor who hasn't been to a town meeting in over a year

Wikipedia map

Here's a good example of the kind of rural reporting that's often missed when medium and large papers reduce their coverage.

In Washington Township, Pennsylvania, pop. 5,122, the town's supervisor has not attended a single township meeting in more than a year but continues to draw a salary. Since the town board only has three members, if Stephanie Diehl doesn't show up, the board might not have a quorum to be able to conduct business, Christina Tatu and Riley Yates report for The Morning Call in nearby Allentown.

"Diehl hasn’t attended a meeting since June 27, when her two colleagues voted to terminate then-Washington Township Zoning Officer Robert Scott, who is Diehl’s husband. It was a raucous meeting that devolved into a screaming match in which Diehl at one point yelled an expletive," Tatu and Riley report.

There are few options under state law for removing elected officials who aren't doing their jobs. "That’s led to the township solicitor, David Ceraul, turning to what could be a long-shot bid: He’s asked Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli to consider a little-used lawsuit to force Diehl out, under what’s known as a quo warranto petition, which questions whether someone is legally holding office," Tatu and Riley report. Such suits are the only way to challenge an official's right to hold office, and has never been filed in response to an official neglecting their duties.

Supreme Court says governments, no matter how small, can't discriminate on the basis of age

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-0 today that government employers of all sizes, even in small towns, can't discriminate against employees on the basis of age. Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not vote since he wasn't on the court when the case was heard in October, Laura Maggi reports for Route Fifty.

The case comes from Mount Lemmon, a rural town in southeastern Arizona. John Guido and Dennis Rankin, the oldest firefighters oin the Mount Lemmon Fire District, filed an age discrimination suit after they were laid off in 2009. The Supreme Court wasn't deciding whether or not the firefighters had been discriminated against, but whether a small government employer could be sued for it because of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, Maggi reports.

"The fire district, which at the time of the layoff had just 11 full-time employees, argued they were exempt from the law, as is the case with private-sector employers with fewer than 20 workers," Maggi reports. "But Guido and Rankin, along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said the law covers any public employer."

The court said public employers of all sizes were subject to the law. "The fire district warns that applying the ADEA to small public entities risks curtailment of vital public services such as fire protection. Experience suggests otherwise," the court said.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt is replaced by former coal lobbyist

Andrew Wheeler
(Zuma Press photo by Alex Edelman)

Embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned yesterday after continuous controversy about his spending habits, ethics, and management decisions, Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin report for The Washington Post. Though Pruitt weathered storms for months, by currying favor with President Trump, the tipping point for his resignation may have been recent questions about whether he illegally deleted meetings from his calendar after the fact and fired an EPA aide because she questioned the practice, CNN and The New York Times report.

Pruitt's spot will be filled by EPA Deputy Administrator and former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, a move that environmentalists immediately blasted, Dino Grandoni reports for the Post. Wheeler was also the longtime attorney to leading coal magnate Robert Murray, a Trump donor who gave the administration a pro-coal wish list thatg has largely been fuilfilled. Before lobbying, Wheeler was a longtime aide to Sen. James Inhofe who worked on environmental policy. Inhofe is a climate-change denier, and Wheeler has questioned scientifically accepted theories on it.

Asked at his confirmation hearing about the relationship between human activity and global warming, Wheeler said, “I believe man has an impact on the climate but what is not completely understood is what the impact is.”

Wheeler "isn’t likely to bring big changes in policy at the EPA," Rebecca Ballhaus of The Wall Street Journal reports. "Republicans have said Mr. Wheeler was well qualified and noted that he had the support of business groups, which pointed to his work for more than a decade on environmental and natural-resources policy on Capitol Hill. Three Democrats joined the Republicans in voting for his confirmation to the deputy post in April."

UPDATE, July 7: Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin of the Post offer  a Q and A with Wheeler.

Secretive deregulation teams in administration include dozens with potential conflicts of interest

The Trump administration is creating teams to aggressively cut government regulations, and some appointees have deep ties to the industries they aim to deregulate, Danielle Ivory of The New York Times and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica report.

Since most government agencies aren't disclosing who has been appointed to their deregulation teams, the reporters investigated and identified 71 appointees; 28 have potential conflicts of interest. "Some appointees are reviewing rules their previous employers sought to weaken or kill, and at least two may be positioned to profit if certain regulations are undone," they report. "The appointees include lawyers who have represented businesses in cases against government regulators, staff members of political dark-money groups, employees of industry-funded organizations opposed to environmental rules and at least three people who were registered to lobby the agencies they now work for." Appointees can seek ethics waivers in order to work on issues in they may have a conflict of interest.

Two appointees to deregulatory committees may personally profit. (NYT graphic)

Agency responses to requests for records have been "denied, delayed or severely redacted," but the investigative team found ways around it. They went through 1,300 pages of guest sign-in sheets at the Interior Department and found that appointees met "regularly" with representatives from the oil and gas industry. Lobbying groups are peddling economic and legal analyses that they hope the short-staffed deregulatory panels will use to make decisions more quickly.

Here are a few of the appointees with potential conflicts of interest the Times and ProPublica discovered and the deregulation teams on which they're serving:

Agriculture: "Rebeckah Adcock was a senior director of government affairs at CropLife America, the trade association for pesticide manufacturers, where she lobbied USDA. Before that, she was director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation," where her portfolio included conservation programs.

EPA: "Samantha Dravis was general counsel for the Republican Attorneys General Association, president of its Rule of Law Defense Fund and an attorney at Freedom Partners, an organization of conservative political donors led by billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, owners of a conglomerate that sells coal, gas and other products."

Energy: "Daniel Simmons was vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research, a conservative think tank that has opposed efforts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions and that has received funding from the American Petroleum Institute and the Charles Koch Institute. Prior to that, he was a task force director for the American Legislative Exchange Council, an industry-funded model bill organization, and a research fellow at the Koch-funded conservative think tank Mercatus Center" at George Mason University.

Interior: "Scott Cameron founded and was president of a non-profit organization called the Reduce Risks from Invasive Species Coalition, which has received money from Syngenta, a pesticide company that has been lobbying the Interior Department, and other industry groups. He also worked for Dawson and Associates and worked as an advisor to several companies, including an Interior contractor. Before that, he was at Interior himself."
Interior: "Daniel Jorjani previously worked for groups connected to the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch."

Wisconsin governor boosts open-records laws as legislators mull pulling public notices from newspapers

Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker last week issued an executive order "making it easier for the public to find state government notices and meeting minutes," Molly Beck reports for the Wisconsin State Journal. During last year's Sunshine Week, which this year runs through Saturday, Walker ordered improvements to how open records are handled, Matthew DeFour reports for the Journal.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are considering bills "that would do-away with the newspaper publication of local-government meeting minutes," reports The Polk County Sun. "Assembly Bill 70 and its companion bill, Senate Bill 42, would give school boards, city councils, village boards, county boards and technical college boards the option to post meeting minutes and proceedings on their own websites to fulfill publication requirements instead of printing them in a local newspaper, which is currently required by state law."

Walker on Thursday "asked state agencies to post the most commonly requested documents online to be readily available to the public, and to post how quickly their officials respond to records requests under the state’s open records law," Beck writes. "Walker’s order requires the Department of Administration to improve the state’s public notice website by requiring all state government public notices and meeting minutes to be uploaded to the site."

"The order also requires each agency to post the total number of public records requests received, the total number of requests the agency responded to and the average time it took to fulfill the request," Beck writes. "State officials also will create and manage a single email address for agencies to use to send their meeting notices and minutes and all agency public records email addresses will be posted" online.

On March 11, 2016, Walker issued an "executive order directing state agencies to respond to requests promptly, update requesters on the status of their requests, track all requests and facilitate access to electronic records whenever possible," DeFour writes. "In the 14 months prior to the order, the average response time to fill 8,448 requests was 13 workdays. The average response time to fulfill 10,395 requests since has been nine workdays, a 30 percent improvement."

Arkansas legislators' war on transparency broadens to include newspapers' public notices

UPDATE: The public-notice bill has been referred for study during the interim between legislative sessions.

The fight to keep public notices in newspapers across the United States has come to Arkansas. "HB 1836 filed late last week seeks to remove the requirement for cities and counties to publish their public notices in newspapers and allow them to post the public notices on their respective websites," the Arkansas Press Association reports in its Arkansas Publisher Weekly.

The measure comes after a host of other bills that are picking away at the state's Freedom of Information Act, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on Feb. 14.

APA Executive Director Tom Larimer said in his column that the language of HB 1836 has been introduced before and the arguments against it are still the same: "Internet connectivity remains sparse in large portions of the state. Posting these public notices to a web site would disenfranchise a large chunk of Arkansas’ population." He added, "If the goal is to put public notices online, they are already online."

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Karilyn Brown of Sherwood, is expected to be discussed on the House City, County and Local Affairs Committee agenda next week, APA reports. Local governments around the country are asking state legislatures to roll back public-notice requirements, arguing that the move would save money. Newspapers argue that few people read government websites.

Larimer asks, is the "small savings" from removing public notices in newspapers "worth the loss of a transparent government?" Because the notices are already online at no charge, “They’re not going to find a better bargain.”

Sunshine Week, which celebrates open government, is from March 12-18.

Fueled by Trump's hostility to news media, Arkansas advances bills to reduce open records

Arkansas lawmakers last week voted in favor of several measures to limit freedom of information, Lisa Hammersly reports for Arkansas Online. On Thursday a committee advanced a bill, presented as protecting school security information from terrorists and plotters, that "would prohibit release of records 'that upon disclosure could reasonably be expected to be detrimental to the public safety.'" The bill "would exempt information from kindergartens through universities relating to the number of licensed security officers, school resource officers, or other security personnel, as well as any personal information about those individuals."

Two other bills that advanced Thursday "would curb the reach of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act focused on records pertaining to the Governor's Mansion and grounds and camera footage showing the death of any police officer," Hammersly writes. Legislators also reviewed a pending bill that "would change the current standard that requires government agencies to provide most records requests in no more than three days." It would "allow an agency to determine that a request is too large, complicated or 'burdensome' and to reply in writing with a longer time period to fulfill the request."

On Wednesday the House State Agencies and Government Affairs Committee passed two measures that would "create exemptions from the public disclosure law," John Moritz  and Michael R. Wickline report for Arkansas Online. Open-government advocates say one bill "would prevent records constituting attorney-client communication and attorney litigation documents from disclosure." Lawyers argued "such protection is needed to prevent opposing counsel from requesting access to notes and other legal materials while in litigation against state agencies. But opponents argued that the bill could also allow agencies to make any record secret simply by making sure it passed in front of a lawyer."

Tom Larimer, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association, wrote in an editorial that President Trump's attitude towards the media is pooling over to states. He writes, "There is a decided hostile attitude toward 'the media' in general at the legislature and since technically 'we' are part of the media we’re taking the brunt. I had speculated, at least to myself, that the present animosity toward government transparency has been fueled by the present anti-media sentiment in Washington, D.C."

"I had speculated that this might be the case that some perhaps most of the current legislature, are just echoing what they’re hearing out of D.C., and it is now not so much nuanced in the Arkansas legislature as it is an openly hostile attitude," he writes. "We know going into every session that we’re going to have these fights to preserve the public’s right to know in Arkansas, but nothing could have prepare us for the open hostility we’ve encountered."

Larimer, who urges journalists to keep readers informed, especially on how their elected officials are voting, wrote, "We often talk about the proverbial 'slippery slope' when it comes to amending the FOIA, meaning that once it begins it will be difficult to stop. Well, it’s not so much proverbial any more. It is a cold reality."

Sunshine Week, which celebrates open government, is from March 13-19.

Coal baron elected W.Va. governor facing conflict-of-interest issues surrounding business holdings

Jim Justice at The Greenbrier
 (USA Today photo by H. Darr Beiser)

The same conflicts of interest playing out nationally with President-elect Donald Trump are occurring on a smaller scale in West Virginia, Jonathan Mattise and Michael Virtanen report for The Associated Press.

Jim Justice, the billionaire operator of Southern Coal Corp. and owner of The Greenbrier resort, was elected governor of West Virginia, and like Trump, "has refused to shed his holdings, giving assurances he can be trusted to act honorably," reports AP. "Like Trump, he has put his business empire in the hands of family members, though he said as recently as last month that he would put his holdings in a blind trust." Justice, who has around 100 businesses in his name, has real estate, farm and resort holdings. That has raised "questions about how state agencies that answer to him will regulate the safety of his coal mines, consider the tourism tax breaks at his resort, or pursue millions of dollars in past-due state taxes owed by some of his entities."

AP continues, "One difference in West Virginia, though, is that Justice, like some other governors around the country, is subject to more stringent conflict-of-interest rules than even the president of the U.S., who is exempt from the provisions that apply to Cabinet members and other government employees," reports AP. "West Virginia ethics law prohibits public officials, the governor included, from knowingly using their offices for their own private gain or that of someone else. State regulations also bar public officials from profiting from state contracts over which they may have control."

Justice told reporters, "I'm going to try to remove myself completely. In fact, I'm going to remove myself completely from the daily decisions, the decisions that they make. But I want you to realize just this: What is the alternative? I mean, is it best to just close the businesses that I have? They generate tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars to our state. It would be frivolous to do that. It'd be absolutely the stupidest thing in the world to do. I don't want a thing—and absolutely I want to underline that—you can't bring me anything to my business that's going to be beneficial to me in any way."

N.C. Republicans enact law taking powers away from Democrats and their incoming governor

Outgoing North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory on Friday signed into a law a measure that critics say will benefit Republicans and take power away from Democratic Gov.-elect Roy Cooper, Richard Craver reports for the Winston-Salem Journal. McCrory lost a close race in November to Cooper. The state House and Senate are Republican-controlled.

McCrory signed SB 4, which "makes significant changes to the state and county elections boards, and would return the state Supreme Court to partisan races," Craver writes. "The bill also would combine the state elections board with the campaign-finance, lobbying and ethics commissions into one state agency."

Craig Jarvis, of The News & Observer in Raleigh, notes that "Republican legislators who wrote Senate Bill 4 describe it as an effort to make elections oversight bipartisan. But the result would be to deprive the incoming Democratic administration of control of state and county elections boards."

HB 17, which was approved Friday afternoon and is expected to be signed by McCrory, would strip the governor's power to appoint University of North Carolina trustees, Craver writes. It also will "require the advice and consent of the Senate for governor appointments as state department heads and reduce the number of exempted state employees from 1,500 back to 300—the same level as in the months before Gov. Pat McCrory was elected. A Senate amendment would raise the number to 400." Democrats say that could make as many as 1,200 McCrory appointees career state employees.

Cooper told reporters, “If I believe that laws passed by the legislature hurt working families and are unconstitutional, they will see me in court and they don’t have a very good track record there.”

Ethics panel rebukes congressman fighting horse abuse for allowing Humane Society lobbyist wife to contact his staff; he says issue killed his bill

Whitfield and wife Connie Harriman Whitfield in his office. (Washington Post, 2010)

Legislation to tighten the rules on treatment of show horses has fallen victim to an ethical breach by a retiring congressman and his wife, a lobbyist for the group pushing the measure, the congressman said yesterday.

The House Ethics Committee reproved Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky's First District for failing to prohibit lobbying contacts between his staff and Connie Harriman Whitfield, a lobbyist for the Humane Society of the United States. The committee said the breach was unintentional, but Whitfield said the horse-show groups that filed the complaint got what they wanted.

"Whitfield's bill did not come up for a vote in the last Congress, despite support from a range of animal and veterinary groups and more than 300 co-sponsors in the House," reports Matthew Daly of The Associated Press. "Whitfield blamed that outcome on the ethics inquiry, which he said was initiated by groups including the Tennessee-based Performance Show Horse Association and the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration" in Shelbyville.

"The committee questioned Whitfield's claim that he didn't even know his wife was a registered lobbyist until October of 2013," Joseph Gerth reports for The Courier-Journal of Louisville. Two months later, Politico did a report on the matter.

Whitfield also led the effort to ban horse slaughter in the U.S. In a prepared statement, he said, "Championing the welfare of animals has been a passion that my wife and I have shared throughout our 25 years of marriage. My commitment to animal protection is the reason I became the target of an ethics complaint." He said the committee did not find that he has given his wife special access to his staff, a more serious charge, but "I made a mistake."

White public official in Virginia calls African American reporter 'boy' in response to article

Upset about a story written by a local reporter alleging an open meeting violation, a white official in Augusta County, Virginia, (Family Search map) referred to the African American reporter as "boy" last week during a public meeting, Megan Williams reports for The News Leader. "At a staff briefing (Jan. 26) Augusta Supervisor Tracy Pyles told News Leader government reporter Calvin Trice, 'You got it wrong, boy—uh, son.' Four other supervisors at the meeting either said they didn’t hear Pyles or wouldn’t comment. However, Pyles admitted to referring to Trice as 'boy' and called it an 'error,'" saying that he refers to everyone like they're his sons, including reporters.

"The Rev. Mildred Middlebrooks, a Waynesboro NAACP president for 27 years, said the slur by Pyles was an example of how racism is still alive," Williams writes. Middlebrooks told her, “The term ‘boy’ has been in usage for such a long time. There are some things that die, and there are some things that seem to be like the phoenix bird that have a rebirth whenever the person using the term . . . has a sense of big-headedness, power.” Middlebrooks "said that for a black man to be called 'boy' in 2015 begs the question of how far we’ve come in racial relationships." Middlebrooks told her, “Especially if an elected official is harboring these kinds of thoughts."

Trice, who has covered the board for four years, said he was expecting a reaction from Pyles but that this was “the first time it got uncomfortably personal," Williams writes. He told Williams, “The context was obviously angry, and that’s a term that when it’s been used against me was a racial slur, a put down.” Pyles did call Trice the next day to apologize. Trice told Williams. "He did mention, and he seemed to be sincere, that he hoped I haven't felt any different from any other member of the media . . . and honestly that's true. It meant a lot that he said it." (Read more)

Sunlight Foundation writer says new Farm Bill fails the transparency test

Rick Cohen

The recently signed Farm Bill shows a weakness in transparency, opines Rick Cohen of the Sunlight Foundation., a nonprofit dedicated to openness in government.

"The Farm Bill manages to keep the recipients of the crop insurance program secret," Cohen writes. "It even ditched a provision sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) that would have simply required members of Congress and of the president’s Cabinet who are receiving crop-insurance benefits to reveal themselves to the public," he writes. "The Senate, controlled by members of the resident’s political party, never let an amendment offered by Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would have required disclosure of all beneficiaries of the crop insurance subsidy even come to a vote."

President Obama claimed last year that his administration was the most transparent in history, but "that hasn't been quite our take on the transparency of the Obama administration on campaign finance, lobbying, closed door conferences with philanthropists, the Social Innovation Fund, insider trading by members of Congress, bilateral aid, prosecuting whistleblowers, and, of course, the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency," Cohen writes. "In some cases, legislation that reached the president’s desk for signature, such as the STOCK Act, had been so gutted in Congress as to make the disclosure requirements weak, if not worthless. But the president has the ability to veto bills that violate his commitment to transparency and to use his bully pulpit to call out legislators for ducking into the shadows."

"With the Farm Bill’s next-to-nonexistent transparency requirements on crop insurance, the operative issue may be the connection of the campaign donors to politicians—including President Obama," Cohen writes. "Sunlight notes that in the 2012 election cycle, agricultural services industry interests contributed $42 million in federal and state campaigns. Included in the donors’ lists are various crop insurance trade associations that probably feel a lot more comfortable with keeping the identities of crop insurance recipients hidden from the public."

"In his State of the Union address, the president promised a new muscularity in the use of executive orders, a willingness to issue them when Congress proves unable to act," Cohen writes. "In the case of transparency, President Obama ought to be issuing a flood of executive orders, because his signing off on transparency-weak legislation coming from Congress, such as the Farm Bill, will serve to make his administration unbelievably less transparent than he promised in his 2008 campaign and 2009 inauguration." (Read more)

Kentucky congressman and lobbyist wife, animal lovers, push for more specific ban on horse soring

The congressman representing a rural Western Kentucky district "is leading the charge" on legislation to tighten the rules against mistreatment of show horses, in harness with his wife, "a paid lobbyist for the Humane Society Legislative Fund," John Bresnahan and Anna Palmer of Politico report. "The pair’s efforts have included sessions in which they have jointly lobbied lawmakers and aides to support the legislation, according to sources who have met with the couple."

Associated Press photo

Republican Rep. Ed Whitfield "hasn’t been shy about mentioning the connection with his wife’s employer, even noting in statements on the House floor that the Humane Society — among other organizations — supports his legislative initiatives," Politico reports. "It’s uncommon for a lawmaker to work so closely with a lobbyist on legislation, especially with a spouse who is paid to lobby on the issue. The Whitfields have caught the ire of opponents of the legislation who allege their activity is inappropriate, since the congressman’s wife, Connie Harriman-Whitfield, has worked as a registered lobbyist for the fund since 2011."

Whitfield told Politico, “I don’t view that as an ethics violation because it’s an issue that I’ve been involved in since I’ve been in Congress and this is a practice that must be and should be stopped. There’s a big difference in my mind of getting financial gain for some financial institution, to trying to prevent cruelty to animals.” He said he has a 62 percent rating on the Humane Society's latest scorecard.

Whitfield's legislation would require the Department of Agriculture to more specifically ban soring, the use of irritants, chains or other devices to alter the gait of Tennessee walking horses. Earlier, Whitfield successfully pushed for a ban on USDA inspection of horse slaughter plants, putting them out of business. Congress repealed the ban in 2011, and two horse slaughterhouses plan to open soon, having cleared almost all legal obstacles.

Whitfield's wife "is credited with playing a major role in instituting the U.S. and worldwide ban on the elephant ivory trade" as an assistant interior secretary under President George H.W. Bush, Politico reports. Originally from California, she married Whitfield in 1990 when he was a Democrat and a Washington lobbyist for Jacksonville-based CSX Corp. He was elected as a Republican from Kentucky's First District in 1994. They were featured in a 2010 Washington Post story about dogs on Capitol Hill, including this photo in his office:

FBI in New Mexico focusing on corruption in rural and remote areas, where it often goes unreported

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is cracking down on corruption in rural New Mexico towns, with a no-acceptance policy aimed at rooting out any amount of corruption, no matter how small, Patrick Lohmann reports for the Albuquerque Journal. "Officials are tackling what they say is a perception that a certain amount of corruption is acceptable, especially in small towns, so they’re asking rural-community residents to think critically about how money is being spent and contracts awarded by their public officials."

A study released earlier this year found that state capitals in remote or rural areas tend to be more corrupt, because of their isolation, and lack of media coverage. FBI lawyer Stephan Marshall cited similar reasons for the crackdown in New Mexico, Lohmann writes. "Marshall said the state’s larger metropolitan areas are better protected against public corruption because bureau offices are often located in them, and because news-media outlets in cities are generally more aggressive. Smaller towns are vulnerable to devastating losses and reduction in services, Marshall said, even if the amount of money misspent pales in comparison to corruption in places like Albuquerque or Santa Fe."

The FBI is also asking citizens to be active in reporting corruption, providing a phone number where people can report suspected corruption, Lohmann writes. The FBI also has "a page on its website that lists possible ways officials could be abusing their power, including whether contracts awarded benefit a public official, whether officials’ relatives are getting contracts and if contracts are being awarded without a bidding process." (Read more)

Republican majorities take over county election boards in N,C.; at least one creates controversy

Residents of Watauga County, in the rural northwestern corner of North Carolina, are upset over arguably partisan actions of the 2-1 majority on its county board of elections, freshly Republican because of the GOP's recent takeover of state government.

The Democratic board member has alleged open-meetings violations by the Republicans, who recently took several actions that could lessen the electoral influence of students at Appalachian State University: reducing the number of early polling places, combining three precincts into one that will be the state's fifth largest, and changing the location of another polling place, Jesse Wood reports for the High Country Press in Boone, the county's largest city. (Photo by Wood: The meeting got so crowded it had to be moved to a larger room)

The crowd at the meeting reacted with "a roomful of boos and jeers and ended with a chant of 'shame on you,'” Wood writes. Democratic member Kathleen Campbell threatened legal action multiple times during the heated meeting, saying Eggers and Aceto signed the special-meeting notice on a Thursday, but she and Elections Director Jane Ann Hodges hadn’t received the information packet for the meeting until minutes before Monday’s meeting, after the Republican members had first refused to let her have it. (Read more)

The Watauga Democrat, which despite its name is not a partisan newspaper, said in an editorial, "What is difficult to understand are the depth and breadth of some of the rapid-fire alterations of board policy that were imposed." The paper invited the board to come to its office "for a roundtable discussion. . . . We would like to believe that our county board of elections, at all times and in all political climates, exists for a singular nonpartisan purpose -- to promote full and fair elections within the confines of our county. That is the ideal to which we must aspire, and it's time to talk honestly about how we will get there." (Read more)

Corruption more likely at isolated state capitals, which get less scrutiny from public and journalists

State capitals located in more remote or rural areas tend to be more corrupt than ones that are less isolated from the rest of the state, or the country, according to a recently released study using data from 1976 to 2002, reports Brad Plumer for The Washington Post.

Remote areas often receive less newspaper and media coverage, and because the state houses are isolated, voters might not be as aware as other areas what's going on, which leads to smaller voter turnouts, reports Plumer. (Read more) The report can be read here. The study plotted federal convictions of public officials for corruption against a distance factor: