The Michigan State House of Representatives passed House Bills 5469-5478 on Wednesday to expand and strengthen the state’s existing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws by subjecting the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor to FOIA laws and creating the Legislative Open Records Act (LORA).
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Read More… from Michigan House passes bills expanding state’s Freedom of Information Act
After three years and a losing court fight, the D.C. Council is nearing agreement on releasing records requested by activists concerning the controversial McMillan Reservoir development deal.
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From the DC Open Governent Coalition:
For 20,000 appeals filed each year from decisions in dozens of District agencies, from trash tickets to school suspensions, unemployment denials and Food Stamp or Medicaid errors, the only way to check on your case is by calling the clerk’s office at the central appeals office or visiting in person downtown at Judiciary Square—a special chore for the thirty percent of customers from Virginia and Maryland.
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The most recent newsletter from the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition (CFOIC) can be found here.
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Read More… from News and Updates from Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition
Twenty years ago, facing a rash of legislation that would adversely affect the public’s right to know, a group of advocates, public officials, academics and other civic-minded citizens began working to develop an organization to give the cause of transparency greater voice in Virginia.
Tonight, that group – the Virginia Coalition for Open Government – marks its anniversary with a dinner in Richmond.
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Read More… from Virginian-Pilot editorial: Celebrating 20 years of agitating for open government
The State Department has faced a deluge of open records requests and lawsuits in recent months, many of them stemming from former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server throughout her tenure at the department.
This year, the State Department has been authorized to hire 25 new full-time staffers to work on processing requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
But only one has been hired, Obama administration lawyers disclosed in their filing this week.
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Read More… from State Dept. slow to hire open records staffers despite flood of requests
A federal judge released a list Wednesday of all sealed requests made in Washington in 2012 for Americans’ telephone and Internet activity, a step toward bringing more public scrutiny to rapidly expanding secret law enforcement activities.
The action came in a case brought by a journalist to unseal a much larger collection of information about court-ordered electronic surveillance in closed criminal investigations in the nation’s capital.
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The Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal requested by the Daily Press in a yearlong dispute over whether the state’s Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court must release a database of court case information.
The decision was issued Sept. 19, about two and a half weeks after lawyers representing the Daily Press argued that the state’s highest court should hear the case.
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Read More… from Virginia Supreme Court to hear Daily Press appeal over court database
University of Texas System Regent Wallace Hall Jr. has lost in court a second time, and perhaps for good, in his effort to gain access to confidential student information from an investigation of admissions irregularities.
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Read More… from TX: Appeals court tosses UT regent’s lawsuit over admissions records
The state House passed a package of bills Wednesday that for the first time in Michigan would subject the governor's office and the Legislature to state open records laws.
The Free Press reported in 2014 that Michigan was one of only two states in which both the governor and the Legislature have blanket exemptions from public records disclosure laws.
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