Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Arizona, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Nevada.

In Arizona, AZCentral reports on how for the first time ever citizens will get to choose whether their state representatives get a pay raise or not.

In Massachusetts, Hub Politics reports about state senate republicans’ new blog.

In Mississippi, Alaskan Jambalaya has a post about Hank Paulson lobbying efforts before he became Secretary of the Treasury.

In Nevada, Vote Gibbons Out is asking people to dig into the state level campaign finance reports. Apparently they are difficult to decipher them when they are hand written. I wonder if the FEC has that problem with Senate campaign finance reports since the Senate is not required to file electronically. Indecipherable election information should become a thing of the past. www.Pass223.com

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As reported by Government Technology:

Arizona just launched a new Web site, Arizona’s Openness and Saving Strategies Project.  From the site:

These are tight times, and Arizona’s budget is no exception. That’s why we need to find every good idea we can, and put those ideas to work to help state government agencies save money. This site contains news about Arizona’s budget, as well as examples of savings strategies that have already been implemented in Arizona and are working now. State employees can also use this site to find cost-saving measures in use at other agencies. Just as importantly, you will find ways to Submit Your Own Ideas to help our state cut back even further.

This new project opens up the buget process so state agencies can collaborate with each other and citizens can share their ideas for saving money with officals.  It also has budget related news and gives information on how the state budget is produced.

With this project Arizona is really exploring new ways to deal with its budget deficit.  Not to mention that inviting the community at large to participate in fixing their state financial problems empowers citizens to really invest in their state and not just hope politicians will fix it.   I wish Congress would think about more ways like this to involve the wisdom of the masses to help solve problems.  It would be very democratic of them.

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Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and Congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Oregon, Nebraska, and Arizona.

Oregon Earmark’s Blog points to the Favor Factory and then highlights earmarks that the Oregon congressional delegation received. He quips “While I wear and like New Balance shoes, not sure they need the $2.4 Million earmark for cold weather equipment.”

New Nebraska has an interesting post about how the influence of lobbying has changed from term limits. Apparently requiring a new herd of legislators to come in every few terms causes lobbying to be harder because they have to start from scratch with new lawmakers. It will be interesting to see how the lobbying industry evolves in Nebraska to deal with this.

In Arizona, Expresso Pundit posts about earmarking and how it bypasses the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place. He also examines some earmarking that Arizona legislators are doing.

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Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of convering local, state, and Congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

In Arizona, Expresso Pundit posted a very interesting letter from the Arizona state legislature. It is an invitation to a legislative workshop. This workshop discusses; how bills are drafted and moved through the legislature, and also will demo the Arizona Legislative Information System, the Request to Speak Program (this link will take you to a manual about the program), and how to use the legislative website.

Advance Indiana goes into some depth about how the city council of Lake Station, IN wants to ban private recordings of their meetings. The complaint, people are playing the recordings at local area bars to entertain customers.

Spud1 at Turn Main Blue takes this opportunity to challenge some opinions Sen. Collins posted on her new blog. It is great that Sen. Collins has joined the growing number of elected officials’ blogging their opinion and giving constituents a chance to respond.

I’ve been meaning to highlight Nebraska’s Smith Watch. Every week, they go through the actions of the House and highlight what Rep. Adrian Smith did. For instance, from 9/10 to 9/14 Rep. Smith did not submit or make floor statements but he did add his name to resolution H.Res.641, as a cosponsor.

In South Dakota, Lowell from Badlands Blue highlights Tim Johnson’s new We bsite. There is one thing missing Sen. Johnson, a daily schedule! Let you constituents know who you’re meeting with every day, Punch the Clock.

That’s all I have this week. Keep up the good work!

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Keeping track of congressional information starts at the local level, and blogs do a great job of informing people about what is happening in their own backyard. I have been reading local blogs for quite a while and have been very impressed with the coverage on local ethics issues and congressional information. So I would like to highlight every week some blogs that do a great job covering issues that deal with transparency, ethics, and corruption.

In Alabama, Flashpoint describes a recent earmark that funded buying 20,000 smoke detectors for residents in Madison County, and questions its necessity.

Arizona’s Espresso Pundit and BlogforArizona.com both agree that the best way to make public announcements from government agencies is not through a newspaper but that Arizona should put them online on a searchable government Web site.

Georgia Porkbusters gave a rundown of who in the Georgia delegation requested earmarks in the upcoming defense appropriations package.

South Carolina has a new government watchdog blog, the Palmetto Truth Squad. Their goal is to find “verifiable examples of waste, mismanagement and fraud in South Carolina state and local government.”

New York Rochester Turning is reporting that the New York State Ethics Commission recently released an advisory opinion on the use of state aircraft for political purposes.

In Alaska, Sen. Ted Stevens has taken up quite a bit of blog space recently. The Anchorage Daily News takes some space to talk about the earmark controversies surrounding Alaska’s congressional delegation. Here Sen. Stevens did an interview with the Daily News editorial board. If you go to the bottom you can see his, rather interesting, response when questioned about his legal controversies.

These are just some highlights of what is going on at the state level. Please feel free to contact me (at nthompson at sunlightfoundation dot com) if you have any tips on what is going on locally. I am specifically in search of more local political news blogs in Alaska, so if anyone knows of any, please let me know.

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The first lawmaker in the nation to be ousted for violating campaign finance laws left his position on the Arizona state Legislature on Monday.  Rep. David Smith violated the strict campaign finance laws in Arizona by spending 17 percent more than the allowed amount.  Smith vowed that he would return to the Legislature.

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