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Fourth Quarter 2000 www.public-access-project.org
Public Access News
| 1. | State House and Senate Voting Records and Floor Debate Now Accessible; Public Access Instrumental. | |
| 2. | Legislative Aides Running Campaigns on State Time; Legislative Leaders Hide Time Sheets. | |
| 3. | Chicago’s City Hall Profits; Local Laws Hidden | |
| 4. | Value of Computerized Public Records | |
| 5. | Your Records, Their Rules © Associated Press July 22, 1999. Reprinted by permission. |
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| 6. | Public Access Project Priorities | |
State House and Senate Voting Records and Floor Debate Now Accessible; Public Access Instrument
In an astounding victory for openness in Illinois government, the voting records and text of floor debate of Illinois legislators are now accessible easily to all on the World Wide Web. Public Access handled the legal work and Common Cause and IVI-IPO (Independent Voters of Illinois – Independent Precinct Organization) provided funding coupled with resolute and skillful lobbying. For the first time just last week, Illinois citizens have the knowledge and the tools to hold their legislators accountable.
It was a textbook example of the use of FOIA (the Freedom of Information Act) to leverage the legislators into self disclosure. It took an air-tight legal case, the willingness to litigate vigorously, extraordinarily skillful lobbying, the creation of a potential election issue which could have defeated all but the most entrenched incumbent and, finally, enlightened self-interest to get the job done.
In addition, it was a textbook example of the "system" working when driven by savvy reformers with genuine knowledge of how government works, patience, perseverance and the resources to use both politics and the courts to accomplish their goals by persuading the legislature to reform itself. Important in the mix was allowing those most in jeopardy from the reform to claim credit. In truth, the Illinois General Assembly had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century.
In October of 1999, Public Access, representing Common Cause and IVI-IPO, filed FOIA requests with the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate and others for access to these public records. First they stalled and then they had an underlings sign detailed denials which, contrary to the language of FOIA and decided case law, that we had to appear personally at certain offices in Springfield to gain access, that we could have access only to "hard copy" records and not their computer file versions, that we would be required to pay court reporters’ transcript rates for transcript copies, that we would be required
to pay far in excess of the true cost of Xeroxing for copies of other documents, etc. We appealed directly to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House who denied the appeals summarily.
Suddenly, we got word that both the Democrats and the Republicans in the House would be willing to disclose voluntarily what we were seeking by posting it on the Internet and that they had drafted a bill to that effect but they could not guarantee whether the Senate would cooperate. On January 24th HB3557 was introduced and on February 24th the House passed it unanimously. Amazing!
The bill was sent to the Senate amid President "Pate" Philip’s press statements that it wouldn’t be possible to post all of this information and no one would want to see it anyway. The bill was sent promptly to the Executive Committee for burial. Had we been taken in or double-crossed?
On about April 1st the House proved the Senate and other doubters wrong by posting voluntarily the voting records and journals and on April 12th they posted the first transcripts to be completed even though no law required them to do so. Beginning in mid-September, the Senate has given in as well and has posted the voting records, daily journals and transcripts of floor debates. Illinois General Assembly Web Page; we must be living right!
Surely it is true that legislator accountability is the most important reason for easy access to voting records, daily journals and floor debates. However, many lawsuits are decided over what the intent of the legislature was in passing a particular law. That intent can be gleaned only from the journals and the debates. Lawyers with wealthy clients can jump through all of the hoops and bear all of the expenses necessary to do that kind of in-depth research but the ordinary legal client usually can’t afford that depth of research. Now, going forward from the year 2000, even the legal aid client will have the practical use of these resources.
Most sincere thanks are due to Jim Howard of Common Cause and David Starrett of Common Cause and IVI-IPO who performed miracles in achieving the legislative resolution to a matter we all thought would require an expensive and bitter court battle.
Legislative Aides Running Campaigns on State Time; Legislative Leaders Hide Time Sheets
For years it has been a dirty little secret so well-known and pervasive that virtually no one any longer bothers to question it: aides to the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses are assigned throughout the State to run campaigns for party favorites, particularly incumbents, on State time.
Sometimes known as "policy staff" or "political staff," these young men and women falsify their time sheets in order to mask the fact that they are engaged in partisan political activity on State time. Skillful claims of vacation and sick days, creative falsification of travel vouchers, claims of taking leave from the State job without pay while enjoying State paid insurance, pension plans and the benefits of increasing seniority are all par for the course.
The 1970 Illinois Constitution recognizes it what it is: the theft of public funds; stealing State money and using it to subsidize partisan interests state-wide. It is prohibited clearly by state law.
These raids on the public purse are directed by Illinois’s top public officials. News stories on party leadership assistance to campaigns use the measure of how many dollars and how many staff aides are transferred to
various campaigns to determine commitment to a campaign. Even "good government" lobbyists look the other way because of their dependency on these staffers in accomplishing the lobbyists’ primary goals. News reporters are even complicitous in this "conspiracy of silence" since they depend on staffers for leaks, tips, prompt answers to proper questions and candid analysis which assists reporters in their understanding the meaning of public events.
Most Springfield public observers have lost their sense of outrage regarding this scam, in part, because they all benefit from it. Who is hurt by this scam? Only the taxpayers, unsuccessful office seekers, minor political parties and party rebels.
Public Access is trying to put a stop to these corrupt practices. FOIA demands for time sheets and travel vouchers have been filed with both houses and both major parties. Public Access’ demands were timed as much to warn and prevent such practices in the Fall campaign as to catch improper past behavior. Again, our strategy is more to prevent improper practices than to win victories publicly catching someone in an embarrassing position. It is unclear as yet as to whether the practice has been stopped.
The legislative leaders have now refused to disclose the time sheets, vacation records, etc. on the grounds that the disclosures violate the privacy rights of the public employees. We have appealed.
The 1970 Illinois Constitution, state statutes and clearly decided case law all make clear that there is nothing private about the spending of State funds. Presumably, the leaders will hold firm to this position and we will need to be in court around October 10th.
What judge will buy the argument that employee privacy prevents anyone from finding out whether the employees are stealing money by being paid for public work they are not doing?
Like the disclosure of legislative voting records, house journals and the transcripts of floor debates, the legislative leaders may soon realize that the light that they see at the end of this tunnel is the headlight of an express train which will run them down if they don’t get out of the way.
Chicago City Hall Profits;
Local Laws Hidden
When most of us were learning to play baseball, we delighted in the "hidden ball trick." With at least one man on base, the fielding team would pretend that the pitcher had the ball, preparing to deliver it to the next batter. In fact, an infielder had the ball and would try to catch a base-runner off base to tag him out. The basic principle was to intimidate the team at bat into taking no risks for fear that the hidden ball could appear at any time.
For years the City of Chicago’s hidden ball trick has been that the City Ordinances, the City laws which govern daily life and commerce, purposely have been made inaccessible. The basic way this was accomplished was that a publishing company would be granted a contract with the City to publish the compilations of ordinances known as the Municipal Code of Chicago, the City of Chicago Building Code, the Chicago Zoning Ordinances, etc. selling a large number of Code volumes to City government at a low price and to the public at a high price sharing the profits with City government.
Enough copies of the Municipal Code of Chicago were made available in public
libraries and new laws passed by the City Council easily were available individually so that it could not be claimed
that the laws were being hidden completely.
The greatest utility of the scheme is the concentration and perpetuation of the knowledge monopoly of political insiders and those with enforcement powers. If an inspector tells a businessman that the law requires that he must build an enclosure for his garbage cans, the businessman can’t, as a practicality, even check it out. If businesses are being allowed to build additions to accommodate more employees or more customers without supplying additional parking, as a practicality, the residential neighbors can’t, even check it out. Without access to the knowledge that the government may be enforcing its laws in a discriminatory manner, without access to the knowledge that the government may be failing to enforce its laws in a way beneficial to campaign contributors, the traditional checks and balances on government of citizen complaint, press inquiry, aggressive advocacy by local representatives does not occur. That’s darned convenient especially when the City makes a profit from the scheme!
In order to prevent units of government from transferring public records to non-governmental third parties to avoid disclosure, FOIA specifies "(n)otwithstanding any other law, a public body may not grant to any person or entity, whether by contract, license, or otherwise, the exclusive right to access and disseminate any public record as defined in this Act."
To be fair, the City of Chicago maintained this same kind of publishing agreement with Index Publishing and its predecessors for many years before the passage of FOIA and it appears that no one ever challenged the practice. Public Access now has.
On September 18th Public Access filed a FOIA request with Mayor Daley demanding full disclosure of the Municipal Code of Chicago in computerized form and all financial records which show the royalties, fees, licenses, discounts and other financial benefits – the revenue gained by the City by the illegal practice. Our goal is to settle the matter with the City’s publication of an up-to-date copy of the Municipal Code of Chicago, the City of Chicago Building Code, the Chicago Zoning Ordinances, etc. on the City’s Web site. Then, any citizen with access to the Internet (at home, at a friend’s home, at an Internet cafe, at school, at a library or at work) will have easy and useful access.
Value of Computerized Public Records
Cost
When fairly charged for, photocopying costs about 10 cents a page including paying the salary of the machine operator. Many public agencies illegally insist on charging 25 or 50 cents a page for "hard copy" public records. While FOIA provides that charging costs in excess of the actual cost for photocopying constitutes an illegal denial of access, it is rare that these overcharges would justify the thousands of dollars of court costs and legal fees necessary to go to court to enforce the law.
By contrast a standard 75 cent CD-ROM disk holds about 52,000 pages of legal briefs and the standard 30 cent 3.5 inch floppy disk holds about 115 pages of legal briefs and either method of copying onto computer media takes the machine operator less than 1% of the time of Xeroxing.
Searchability
Searching paper records for specific data, relationships, irregularities and incongruities is the proverbial needle in a haystack. Even after hundreds or thousands of man hours, bleary eyes and paper cuts, if he finds something valuable, it is because the researcher knew it was there before his search began or because he found it by pure accident.
By contrast, every computer document can be searched for specific words or numbers in fractions of a second. Groups of computer
documents can be aggregated or compared. Most important, data can be re-ordered or sorted by smallest, largest, most frequent, least frequent, etc. There is virtually no question which can be asked which can not be answered in a fraction of a second. Mathematical calculations can be made with incomparable ease.
Portability
When one realizes how many paper records can be saved on a single disk of computer media, one understands how libraries of data can be carried about in one’s pocket. Data can be transmitted to others in this concentrated form anywhere in the world in moments. More important, it can be displayed on the World Wide Web, not just as reports or conclusions but as fully searchable raw data. Reports can be constructed and edited cutting and pasting and copies made in fractions of a second.
Just as computerized data is amazingly portable, modern computer equipment is
just as portable. Even if a government agency did not have equipment capable of copying data to CD-ROM disks or
a high speed data connection with which to send the data by email, the researcher can now easily bring his laptop
computer and portable CD-ROM writer to the agency to copy the public records in moments.
Confirmability and Correctability
Because the data analysis performed by Public Access sometimes embarrasses or results in strong criticism of public officials or political candidates, we always post our "work papers" so that our conclusions can be tested, confirmed or corrected. Because the principals of Public Access all have significant political experience and alliances, our conclusions must be available for easy testing to maintain credibility and dispel suggestions of bias. With the availability of the raw data upon which we base our conclusions, other researchers no longer need to trust our conclusions based on our credentials or reputation.
Reports published in books or simply by press release are nearly impossible to correct. Reports published on the Web can be corrected in minutes. Public Access is committed to correct every error discovered as prominently as the original conclusion was announced and to publish, without exception, every single criticism sent to us with our original or corrected report.
Your Records,
Their Rules
© Associated Press July 22, 1999. Reprinted by permission.
Many Officials Reluctant to Provide Public Information
By Christopher Wills THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SPRINGFIELD -- Ask for public documents in Illinois and you may get hostile questions, bureaucratic delays, even threats from a sheriff or two. What you won't get, in many cases, is the information you wanted.
Fifteen Illinois news organizations joined forces to conduct an unprecedented, statewide check of how easily citizens can obtain public information. The project found most officials were slow to provide documents that are clearly public record, and many flatly refused.
Nearly two-thirds of the time, people requesting public documents from local offices left empty-handed. More than one-quarter of the requests were never honored, even after allowing officials time to seek legal advice or compile the records.And the people seeking information were not simply turned away.
They often were interrogated about who they were and why they wanted the information. Clerks laughed at the requests or simply pretended the person did not exist.
A Moultrie County deputy pulled one person over and delivered a lecture on proper small-town behavior. A Savanna school employee took down the license plate number. The Edwards County sheriff wadded up a copy of state law and said, "I don't have to tell you nothing."
Jerseyville school superintendent Donald Snyders summed up a common attitude: "We can't let just anybody come in here and rummage through our records."
But, in fact, state law says anybody CAN see public records.They can check to see whether their home's assessed value matches similar homes'. They can see how much government employees are being paid. They can ask who owns certain property or who is being held at the jail or any number of nosy questions.
The law says public officials must answer those questions, even if they don't know who is asking or how the information might be used.That is not how it works in practice, however.
Reporters were sent to all 102 Illinois counties, where they visited the county clerk, jail, city clerk of the largest city and superintendent of the largest school district. They asked for a relatively obscure item -- a list of all public documents maintained by the various offices -- and such routine documents as a log of prisoners, travel vouchers and city council minutes.
They were told not to give their names or identify themselves as reporters if at all possible.
But about half the time, the reporters were asked why they wanted the information and had to reveal their names. They had to file written freedom of information requests in order to get more than one-third of the documents.
The reporters' reluctance to reveal their names puzzled and even scared some clerks. Several called the police to complain.
After two such calls in Sullivan, Deputy Tom Hauser pulled over a reporter to point out his car was missing a license plate. "You can't come to a small community like this and act like that," he said.
Nearly 60 percent of the time -- in 354 out of 605 visits -- the reporters had to get out a copy of the law and point out where it required disclosure of the documents, either because officials refused to release the information or because they did not know they were supposed to be compiling it.
In fact, ignorance of the law often seemed to be as much a problem as hostility toward it. "I've been clerk for 13 years, and I've never heard of that," Litchfield City Clerk Marilyn Hartke said, echoing many others.
Anonymous reporters aren't the only people being refused public information. The Greene County Taxpayers Association wanted to know how much the county paid to settle a wrongful-termination lawsuit, but officials refused to say. The group felt so strongly about its right to know that it is suing. "If they get by with covering this up ... where will it stop?" said Vice President David Surbeck.
For Francis and Marilyn Haarmann, the fight was much more personal. Their son committed suicide, and they wanted the report on the state police investigation.
But he killed himself with the gun of his estranged wife, a state trooper, and authorities would not release the report. Eventually, a judge ordered the state police to release the report and pay their legal fees.
"There are individual citizens who make use of these laws day in and day out and gain knowledge about how their governments work," said attorney Don Craven, a specialist in First Amendment law. "What they want to know is what their government is doing -- and they have to go to court to find out!?"
Asking for logs of jail inmates created the most conflict. Edwards County Sheriff Oren Smith wadded up a copy of the state's Freedom of Information Act and threw it away. "I don't have to tell you nothing if you don't tell me nothing. I wouldn't come back, neither," he warned.
Sheriff Mearl Justus of St. Clair County, using obscenities, said the information would not be provided. "Now get out of here before I have you thrown out," he said.
Another jailer said the information was "none of your business." One insisted on running a criminal background check on the reporter before providing the information, and others tried to do the same.
Some officials said the information -- a simple list of people awaiting trial and the charges against them -- had to be withheld to protect prisoners' privacy. Others said it was a matter of jail security.In all, 33 of the state's 95 jails never provided the information. Yet some, such as Boone and Coles counties, provided the list quickly or even had it posted for the public to see.
Generally, more urban counties did a better job of providing the information. They turned it over more than two-thirds of the time, compared with far less than 60 percent in more rural counties.
There were plenty of exceptions, however. Naperville provided the wrong document and charged $9.25 to do it. Little Jacksonville managed to find the correct document for free.
Central Illinois counties were generally the most helpful. They provided more than two-thirds of the requested information. Northern counties were the least helpful, providing it only half the time. Southern counties fell in between.Government bodies are allowed to require formal freedom of information requests for the most routine of documents, and many did so.
Craven said the forms are often used for record-keeping. But some offices used them to delay or just to irritate.
Olney's East Richland school district initially said no FOI request was needed. More than a week later, the superintendent wrote to demand one. Then there was no reply.
Superintendent Don Hupp of the Galena school district required an FOI request to get his travel vouchers. And since the reporter was not being "courteous," Hupp said he would wait the maximum seven days allowed by law before mailing them.
In the 225 cases where formal requests were filed, the offices failed to respond by the legal deadline nearly one-third of the time. Often, they did not respond at all.
That kind of disregard for the Freedom of Information Act concerns Edwin Yohnka, a spokesman of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "Failure to fully implement FOIA access across the state at every level of government," he said, "does a gross injustice to the spirit of open, responsive government and undermines citizen confidence in public officials."
Public Access Project PrioritiesCompleted - In Process - Planned |
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