News Clips

"Moving local elections to even years will boost turnout, reduce voter fatigue, and minimize stressors on the local boards of elections,'' said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.

"It targets specific instances when the government has used APRA to stonewall specific requests, like RIDOT's decision to withhold accident data it collects from all of Rhode Island's municipalities," says John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. "With respect to the Washington Bridge emails," he said of emails for which different media outlets were charged anything from zero to $450 for the same 236 pages, "the bill would lower the costs by doubling the amount of free search time given for each request, and providing two hours of free time for redaction." "Given that this was the biggest news story in the state," Marion said of the highway bridge closure, "requiring advance payment from multiple legacy news organizations before release of the documents was a case of RIDOT using APRA as a shield in a way that undermines the purpose of the APRA."

Sean McMorris of California Common Cause, a Los Angeles-area nonprofit that advocates for good government and open records, said there are many reasons cities should post responses to public-records requests. Activists, lawyers, business owners and everyday citizens can review the postings themselves without having to interrupt city employees by submitting a redundant request, he said. "It also creates a record for the city in terms of litigation," McMorris said. "It induces them to respond more thoroughly because the record is there." In cases of lawsuits, "the city could use it to defend itself and vice-versa." But too often, McMorris said, government agencies choose to direct people into new requests.

Anne Herring, policy analyst for Common Cause Georgia, raised concerns about the latter provision. “The governor and lieutenant governor get to vote on whether their own races will be audited,” Herring told LaHood’s committee. “That’s a little concerning to me in terms of public confidence in elections.”

According to Catherine Turcer, the executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio, which is part of the Citizens Not Politicians coalition, the group has trained about 2,000 volunteers to collect petition signatures. “It’s clear there’s this disconnect between what it is that ordinary Ohioans want, and what it is that the state legislature chooses to do,” said Turcer. “There is real interest in ensuring that we have accountable government.”

“At the end of the day, this corrupt legislation means that we don’t have money we could be spending on other things,” Executive Director of Common Cause Ohio Catherine Turcer said. HB6, in part, gave two Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) coal plants a consistent stream of revenue, from Ohioans. “To the tune of $153,000 per day,” Turcer said.