March 16, 2012

There were 2 posts published on March 16, 2012 (this is page 1 of 1).

Open records and city boards

I’m a big fan of open government, having seen what closed government gets us. When I was chair of the East CAC, I offered streaming video of our meetings so that as many people as possible could see them. But some in the CAC became concerned last year when City Attorney Tom McCormick’s deemed that CAC chairs’ email are public records.

I’ve blogged before about how I thought Mr. McCormick was wrong about CACs, but I agree with him (and the N&O editorial page) that new social media technologies present a challenge to the Open Meetings Law. Do I think the law can ever keep pace with technology? No, not a chance. So what is one to do?
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The goalposts have moved too far

I was thinking about a post on the Talking About Politics blog saying the Democrats need to buck up and do what it takes to win again. It’s a good point with which I agree. There’s one catch, however:

As my friend Brad Crone, the Democratic consultant from Raleigh, told the Wake County Democratic Men this week: “Republicans won the legislature in districts that we drew. We can do the same thing.”

Can Democrats? It’s true that the Dem’s maps gave us an edge but it wasn’t an edge as extreme as the Republicans have given themselves. Gerrymandering isn’t right with either side does it, but all sides seem to agree that this recent round has taken it to the next level. As Rob Christensen of the N&O pointed out recently, many seats in the state legislature have already been won before a single vote has been cast, based simply on how the new maps have been drawn.

Dems have been given a tough hill to climb. There’s no two ways about it.