This week I have highlights from Virginia, New Jersey, Alabama, Hawaii, and Maryland.

In Virginia, Vivian J. Page, highlights the city of Norfolk, VA’s new YouTube channel. The channel has videos about what is going on in the community. This is a great use of available technology to get messages out to the community.

In New Jersey, Blog the Fifth, discusses Rep. Scott Garrett’s new chief of staff, Amy D. Smith. Smith is a Capitol Hill veteran and also a former lobbyist. She lobbied for the firm Bartlett, Bendall, & Kadesh LLC. Makes you wonder about the revolving door and the perception of conflict of interest.

Mooncat at Left in Alabama highlights Follow the Money’s new Legislative Committee Analysis tool. This new tool shows you the top contributors to committee members and who has contributed to the committee as a whole and what industries are giving money.

In Hawaii, Poinography, talks about providing bloggers with legal protection if they grant a source anonymity. Hawaii state house is considering a bill that includes bloggers under shield protections.  However, this bill is not scheduled for a hearing.

Also in Hawaii, iLind.net, got a response from his Sunshine Blogger Request request to Gov. Linda Lingle’s office for emails. Half of the emails requested were provided the other half were withheld under executive privilege. This is a pretty interesting read to see what was learned from this FOI request and to see what the governor considers executive privilege.

Maryland Politics blog has a great post on what Montgomery County’s senators are working on by providing a list of sponsored bills for each state senator. This is a great reminder that people should be checking out their state government sites, as well as, OpenCongress.org to see if the bills their elected officials are championing are being passed and if you agree with them or not.