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 South Dakota, Texas, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Delaware, and Washington.
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While we work on more transparency for Congress it’s important to note that federal efforts for openness can have a positive effect on state government. On the flip side the states can take the lead on disclosure or they can be less open this makes them great places to see how transparency is valued. Let’s see what the states are up to:

Pennsylvania passed the Right to Know law that makes most government records public. There are 30 exemptions that would keep records sealed these mostly deal with safety and private information. People can request documents by mail, e-mail, fax or any other electronic means as provided by the agency. Response to requests shall be made within five business days.

Mississippi is in the dog house with a slew of new legislation that would close the door to the public by giving various groups exemption to the open meeting or public information laws. This includes exempting airlines from open meetings, judicial nomination advisory committee, also law enforcement.

The Washington senate approved legislation, senate bill 6818, that would require the state have a state expenditure website set up by January 2009

New York City has a Citywide Performance Reporting (CPR) online tool performance tracking tool that will help make City agency performance transparent and accountable. From this database you can find out how state agency’s performance is based on themes. Themes are groups of related government services.

Salary Database’s on a state level have become more prevalent. 15 states have databases that are maintained by local newspapers. Iowa, Georgia, and Oklahoma have state sponsored databases. WikiFoia has a great list of them all and where you can find them.

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This week I have highlights from Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Washington.

In Idaho, IdaBlue, has a new blog roll category, “legiblogs”, this lists all the state legislators that have blogs (or blogislators). There are four blogs currently listed and they all seemed to be updated regularly. It’s great to see elected officials considering blogging as a way to communicate with their constituents.

In Louisiana, Blagueur, highlights a Washington Post article talking about Rep. Richard H. Baker who is in talks to become president of a hedge fund lobby. Also in Louisiana, In the Loop highlights the historic state house organizational session. This included a day long briefing on Louisiana’s Code of Governmental Ethics. This was meant to lead the State Reps through the ethics code and educated them about the requirements for financial disclosure and lobbyist regulation. This was a great opportunity to learn Louisiana’s Ethics Code before the special sessions in February on ethics reform.

In Missouri, the Turner Report, talks about how State Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst introduced bill HB 1548, which, he admitted was written by a lobbyist. This bill would exempt sales tax on purchases of “equipment, machinery, materials, supplies, fixtures, and shoes used in the sport of bowling.” A little more research shows that this bill was previously submitted last year by Rep. Ron Richard, the House Speaker-elect, who happens to own a chain of bowling alleys. How convenient.

In Nebraska, Smith Watch, has a very interesting summary of Rep. Adrian Smith’s first year in Congress. Complete with voting summary and some analysis of who gave him money and how often he voted in their favor.

In New Mexico, LP at New Mexico FBIHOP, highlights the very cool The Santa Fe Reporter’s Muckraker’s Guide to New Mexico. The guide has links to campaign finance, earmark, crime, and various other information any good muckraker would want.

In Washington, Olympia Time, highlights how the state legislature now has RSS feeds for bills which will allow people to subscribe to bills and track changes.

Earmark Corner

The usual ruckus around earmarks has slowed to a disgruntled murmur with people mostly focusing on the election. I did want to highlight a great summary done by Smith Watch on Rep. Adrian’s Smith earmark requests and his opinion on the status of earmarking.

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