Government spending transparency is improving, but many states still lag far behind, according to “Following the Money 2016: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data,” the sixth annual report of its kind by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.
Some states have improved their spending transparency web portals significantly, earning perfect scores in this year’s report, while others are still barely achieving the minimum standards.
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We’re never short of people and groups seeking to shape the work of each Hawaii legislative session to their own benefit.
Our state is no different than any other in that regard. But what continues to set Hawaii apart is its lack of solid laws to regulate that lobbying. This leaves our legislative process vulnerable to corruption, particularly in a state government controlled entirely by one political party.
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Read More… from Editorial: Show us whose fingerprints are all over Hawaii bills
Body cameras will soon be standard operating equipment for all police officers in Connecticut, according to a group of law enforcement and freedom of information experts who participated in a recent Southern Connecticut State University forum.
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Washington state lawmakers took a positive step this spring toward making sure public business is conducted in the open.
The state’s Open Public Meetings Act sets strict standards for the governing bodies of public agencies. With only narrow exceptions, discussions and decisions by public agencies must be open to the public.
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President Barack Obama promised to run the most open administration in history. His White House website still declares: “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.” But the agencies under the president have fallen far short of that pledge.
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Read More… from Editorial: Sen. Reid keeps transparency on hold
When Glen Grays was inexplicably handcuffed and hauled off by the police in Brooklyn on March 17 while delivering the mail on his route in Crown Heights, the world soon learned a bit about him.
At a news conference given by Eric L. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, at which a video of the encounter was made public, Mr. Grays’s mother explained that she had six sons and worried about all of them.
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Read More… from Culture of concealment protects New York City police officers
Delaware and Nevada aren't the only states where it's possible to set up a company without saying who owns it.
In California, too, owners can set up a limited liability company, or LLC, without telling state officials who's behind the curtain.
That anonymity has come under close scrutiny since the release this week of the so-called Panama Papers, which revealed that dozens of global politicians hid assets in offshore shell companies set up by a Panamanian law firm.
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Read More… from The debate in California over how owners can use LLCs to obscure their identities
A Lewis and Clark County jury deliberated four hours at the end of a weeklong trial in deciding that Rep. Art Wittich violated Montana campaign finance law.
District Judge Ray Dayton, of Anaconda, now must decide the penalty.
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Read More… from Editorial: Enforcing Montana’s campaign transparency law
The United States needs to do much more to crack down on offshore tax evasion and financial opacity.
It should impose clear sanctions on the territories that allow rogue financial institutions to operate. Promoting financial opacity pays off for places like the British Virgin Islands, Panama and the Cayman Islands where hundreds of thousands of shell companies are domiciled.
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Read More… from Op-ed: Sanctions for offshore havens, transparency at home
From the Federal Election Commission’s suggestion that it might finally begin scrutinizing donations to super PACs from mystery limited liability corporations (LLCs) to the revelations in the Panama Papers, LLCs are very in right now.
The leak of the Panama Papers reportedly shows the use of offshore shell companies to hide cash by many high-profile foreign figures, from highly-paid soccer star Lionel Messi to the prime minister of Iceland, but the lack of Americans implicated in the investigations has raised eyebrows in the international community.
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Read More… from Why are there so many anonymous corporations in Delaware?
