New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has requested the state’s 932 towns show his office their ethics regulations in an effort to bolster ethics in local government.

The Office of the Attorney General has begun reviewing local ethics measures addressing issues like gifts and conflicts of interest.

The goal is to gather the ethics information to make it public and provide the office with referral information for citizen calls and complaints.

The Attorney General has also has assigned public integrity prosecutors in all 13 regional offices to deal with investigations.

The 17 day special session which convened on November 28, 2011 adjourned late on December 14, 2011.

Amy Loprest, Executive Director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board, testified last Friday before the City Council about the effects of the Citizens United decision on New York City’s campaign finance regulation.

According to their press release:

“Campaign Finance Board Executive Director Amy Loprest testified before the City Council Committee on Governmental Operations regarding the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision earlier today. The Council is considering a resolution that calls for a Constitutional amendment to reverse the decision and establish that corporations are not entitled to the same rights as natural persons.”

“Recognizing a First Amendment right where none had previously been found, Citizens United opened the floodgates to allow massive amounts of unlimited—and too often, undisclosed—independent spending by corporations, unions, and other groups,” Loprest said.

Here is a link to a pdf file of the entire testimony.

The Massachusetts state government, like many other state governments, has launched a transparency website to provide citizens with data that they previously could not easily access.

What sets the Massachusett’s transparency website, Massachusetts Open Checkbook, apart from similar websites is their level of detail and the option to view the spending data in different ways.

Some states, such as California, have taken down their websites because after the initial creation of the website, information had not been adequately updated, and the website was not serving the purpose that it was meant to serve.

The Massachusetts Open Checkbook provides different categories and displays a detailed breakdown of their budget on pie charts, making this website possibly the most user friendly transparency website launched by a state government yet.

To learn more, read Massachusetts Puts User-Friendly Checkbook Online by Sarah Rich.

Arizona

“Redistricting commission up against own deadline” by The Associated Press in the Arizona Capitol Times.

“State redisctricting panel closes in on final maps” by Howard Fischer in the East Valley Tribune.

Colorado

“Colorado Republicans fear loss of legislative seats held by women from redistricting” by Lynn Bartels in the Denver Post.

Maryland

“Baltimore loses clout in redistricting” by Annie Linskey in the Baltimore Sun.

New Jersey

“Panel to decide which N.J. congressional district to sacrifice” by Matt Friedman in the Star-Ledger

New York

“Common Cause/NY Launches Redistricting Maps on Newsday.com” on readmedia.com

North Carolina

“NC Redistricting Opponents: ‘Lawmakers Can’t Pick Voters’” by Stephanie Carroll Carson of the North Carolina Public News Service.

Ohio

“Ohio redistricting sets up battles of incumbents” by Andrea Billups in the Washington Times.

Pennsylvania

“Congressional redistricting puts Pa. congressmen at a distance” by Charles Thompson in the Patriot-News

Rhode Island

“RI panel to vote on redistricting proposal” by The Associated Press in the Boston Globe.

Washington

“Draft maps out for Western Washington redistricting” by Brad Shannon in The Olympian.

Friday morning, the Committee on House Administration unanimously adopted “Standards for the Electronic Posting of House and Committee Documents & Data.” Beginning on January 1st, this will allow anyone with access to the internet to now have access to all House bills, amendments, and resolutions for floor consideration. The documents will be formatted in XML schema maintained at http://xml.house.gov.

According to a post on the Sunlight Foundation’s blog, committees will also be encouraged to post their documents on that site in XML whenever possible — and searchable PDFs when not — with the expectation that mandatory publication requirements in XML will soon be imposed. The House will also store video of hearings and markups, and work to implement standards “that require documents to be electronically published in open data formats that are machine readable,” thereby enabling transparency and public review.

The new standards document can be read here.

GoLocalProv.com published a snapshot of campaign fundraising in Rhode Island. They compiled a list of the candidates with the top figures in campaign funds as the state enters the race toward the 2o12 elections.

The list is topped by U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and state General Treasurer Gina Raimondo. You will also  find Governor Lincoln Chaffee at the number 9 position, as well as a number of mayors, state senators, and state representatives in the list.

Read the full article at “Top 25 Richest Politicians in Rhode Island” by  Dan McGowan.

Governor John Kasich signed HB 369 on Thursday, December 15, 2011. The bill consolidated Ohio’s June 12, 2012 primary for the President and U.S. House of Representatives into the state’s March 6, 2012 primary.

The bill also established new boundaries for the state’s 16 congressional districts to settle a dispute over the previous boundaries established earlier this year.

Federal:

FEC Dysfunction Not Just Politics, it’s Personal

Gingrich’s Book-Selling Efforts Test Law

From the States and Municipalities:

California

California Web Site’s Glitches Block On-line Tracking of Campaign Donations

California

Measure to Curb Union, Corporate Clout Qualifies

Georgia

Report: No evidence Deal worked to fire ethics officials

Indiana

Ex-Chief’s Indictment Is Latest Black Eye

Maryland

Bereano Settles Ethics Charges for $2,750

Maryland

Leslie Johnson Gets One-Year Sentence

Missouri

Kander Files Ethics Bill That Would Bar Lobbyist Gifts

Montana

State Wins First Round in Suit Testing Montana’s Campaign Disclosure Laws

New Mexico

New Mexico Judge’s Bribery Case Is One for the Books

New York

A Diverse Group of Watchdogs

North Carolina

Perdue Fundraiser Gets Probation, $25,000 Fine

Wisconsin

U.S. Appeals Court Strikes down Part of State Election Law

State and Federal Communications produces a weekly summary of national news, offering more than 80 articles per week focused on ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance.

News You Can Use is a news service provided at no charge only to clients of our online Executive Source Guides, or ALERTS™ consulting clients.

The Ohio House and Senate have passed HB 369, a measure to consolidate the state’s two 2012 primaries into a single primary date, scheduled for March 6, 2012.

The state originally scheduled two primaries, a March 6, 2012 primary for county partisan offices, the state legislature, and the available U.S. Senate seat, and a June 12, 2012 primary for the President and U.S. House of Representatives, in order to give state lawmakers more time to settle differences concerning Ohio’s map for legislative redistricting.

The bill now moves to the desk of Governor John Kasich for his signature.

A federal judge ruled in favor of the Alabama Democratic Conference in their challenge of the state prohibition on PAC-to-PAC transfers of funds.

The Alabama Democratic Conference alleged that the law prohibited their PAC from getting money from other PACs to use for voter communication and voter turnout initiatives.

Keeping up with the campaign trails of the 2012 presidential candidates will be a lot easier with the new “Campaigns Check-In” feature that Foursquare and NBC are teaming up to create.

The new feature will appear on the recently launched NBCpolitics.com and will allow visitors to see where each of the GOP candidates are making campaign stops in real-time, and where they’ve been throughout their entire election campaign.

Also, for the Foursquare users out there, you will be able to recieve unique, co-branded political badges from NBC News beginning in 2012.

Learn more in NBC Maps the 2012 Election Campaign Trail With Foursquare by Alex Fitzpatrick.

California’s campaign finance online database, the Cal-Access system, has been out of service for two weeks leaving people unable to search the state’s political contribution and lobbying reports.

The Los Angeles Times reported about the situation in “Campaign database still down, prompting calls for investigation” by Patrick McGreevy.

According to the article, “State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) announced Wednesday that he is introducing legislation to double the registration fees paid by the state’s 1,000 lobbyists to finance proper maintenance of Cal-Access.”

As technology advances, laws, and regulations will have to evolve with it. The concept of privacy becomes very hazy when you are trying to decide if you can track a mobile device belonging to someone who is suspected of a crime. Even today with the new scanning technology utilized by airports which effectively shows images of naked people and has always been surrounded by controversy is used to ensure the safety of airline passengers.

Where can the line be drawn between what is acceptable to ensure the safety of the citizens of the United States and what is a gross violation of personal privacy?

There are also already problems concerning disclosure for online ads on websites such as Facebook and Google. While states such as California and Maryland are among the minority to even take a step in the direction of regulating such political ads, the FEC has disallowed such campaign contributions at the federal level.

Technology is advancing at an incredible rate, and many advancements come with both positive and negative applications.

Learn more in How technology will test the Constitution by Joseph Marks. Here is a video summary from the Brookings Institution Constitution 3.0 event on December 13, 2011.