A special Task Force created to study the impact of moving the legislature from paper to electronic files will convene a public hearing Thursday afternoon to hear some of the concerns being expressed by lawyers, the State Librarian, lobbyists and members of the public. In what was purely a budgetary decision, the Committee on Legislative Management convened the Task Force to make recommendations on which printed documents should be eliminated in order to save money. Among the concerns raised: the elimination of written transcripts of committee hearings would damage the ability of courts to establish legislative intent and the inaccessibility of the electronic data when the website crashes or when bills are not available online (as has occurred in the past) would lessen government transparency rather than broaden it.
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Important Public Hearing this Thursday on Legislature’s Move to Electronic Files - Could Mean Less Transparency
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010Will public officials’ statements of financial interests be posted online?
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010A bill before the General Assembly has moved through its latest hurdle, the Appropriations Committee, and is now awaiting a vote on the Senate floor. It wouldn’t be surprising if SB 289, AN ACT CONCERNING THE ONLINE SUBMISSION AND POSTING OF STATEMENTS OF FINANCIAL INTERESTS, succumbed to a similar fate of many of last year’s ethics reform [...]
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