Category Archives: Open government

Understanding Amendment One: N.C. is better than this

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Update: Well, that didn’t go quite the way I thought.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the polling that says that so many likely North Carolina voters — 46% – don’t fully understand the so-called marriage amendment. I get that uninformed people go to the polls and vote. (How is anyone really supposed to know which judgeship candidate to vote for? Or the Council of State positions?) I also get that misinformed people vote. Happens in every election.

What puzzles me is how they can not understand that the marriage amendment is not an up or down vote on gay marriage.

53% of voters in the state support either gay marriage or civil unions, yet a majority also support the amendment that would ban both. The reason for that disconnect is even with just 24 hours until election day only 46% of voters realize the proposal bans both gay marriage and civil unions. Those informed voters oppose the amendment by a 61-37 margin but there may not be enough time left to get the rest of the electorate up to speed.

Now, I know that sowing confusion was purposeful in how the amendment was written. The wording is broad and full of misdirection. The Republican representative who championed the amendment through the House as much as admitted it to the Fayetteville Observer on Sunday. “(Rep. Paul) Stam, the Raleigh lawmaker, said he wanted a more narrowly worded amendment but was ‘overruled’ by ‘national experts’ he identified as the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group.” (That story buried the lede, if you ask me.)

Still, with all the publicity of the last week, I am befuddled by the polling that suggests tens of thousands of people don’t understand what it means. Newspapers across the state — country, actually — have written endlessly about it. TV stations have run report after report. Facebook and Twitter has been lit up over the past few days.

I know that readership of newspapers is down, and viewership of TV news isn’t great. But is this a case of people getting all their information from friends and acquaintances, information that is incomplete or wrong? Is that what is going to decide an amendment to the state Constitution? Say it ain’t so. North Carolina is better than this.

For the record, I think the amendment has a decent chance of going down…and I’m betting it will be closer than the 14-18-point range by which the polls predict it will pass. Perhaps that is my heart talking rather than my head, but I think people are learning what the amendment really means and I think the energized anti-turnout may well turn the tide.

“Good government should always trump politics.”

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I had a funny dream the other night. Well, it wasn’t funny, but it is fun to think about.

It seems that the state’s top Republicans called a surprise news conference in Raleigh. The media was abuzz, not knowing what would bring Thom Tillis, Phil Berger and Pat McCrory to Raleigh when the General Assembly wasn’t meeting.

McCrory stepped to the microphone. He had volunteered to make the announcement because he expected to be governor of all North Carolinians soon. He wanted to start clean.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice. Like you, we have seen the polls that indicate how North Carolinians feel about same-sex marriage and civil unions. Likely voters plan to vote in favor of Amendment One ensuring that marriage is between a man and a women, and that pleases us. However, the polls also indicate that people are confused about the amendment, and that once it is explained to them, they oppose it.”

Berger and Tillis shifted uncomfortably behind McCrory. They had championed the amendment and led it through the legislature. They weren’t sure they liked what was coming, even thought they had agreed to it.

McCrory pressed on.

“We don’t like that. We don’t like the idea that a poorly worded amendment obscures what we think is good law. We don’t like that people don’t understand what they’re voting on. We want people to make the right choice for the right reasons, not because our amendment writers screwed up. We don’t like that we have so divided the good members of the clergy. When God-loving ministers can’t even agree on what the Bible says, we’re in some kind of uncharted territory.”

He swallowed. “Consequently, we are asking the General Assembly to reconvene in an emergency session and withdraw this amendment. We will rewrite it and put it back on the ballot next year. We want voters to understand exactly what they are voting on so that the will of the people is truly represented. If they vote to support a marriage amendment, which we think they will, fine. But if they kill the amendment, then so be it.

“We know this is an unusual occurrence. We know that we may pay at the ballot box. But we learned in school that good government always should trump politics. And we learned from our parents that doing the right thing, even when it was hard, should always trump doing something underhanded.

“When I am elected governor of this great state in November, I will represent all of the people in North Carolina and their voices should be heard. Thank you.”

I said it was a dream. Still, it’s fun to think about.

 

North Carolina: Just barely passing

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North Carolina can be proud. It didn’t fail in the State Integrity Investigation results. Its overall grade was a C-minus.

It did receive an F in public access to information, which will not surprise any journalist, an F in state budget process, and an F in redistricting, which will not surprise any Guilford County resident.

From the analysis: When an influential North Carolina lawmaker named Stephen LaRoque helped sponsor and pass a 2011 bill loosening regulations on billboards, he was the co-owner of five billboards and president of a firm that owned four others.

But when LaRoque asked the North Carolina Ethics Commission to review his key legislative role, it found no conflict, citing what it called a “safe harbor” stemming from the fact that his law would benefit everyone owning billboards.

The case reflected what many analysts say is the prevailing state of North Carolina’s ethics regulations: A lengthy set of rules has been enacted to help keep public officials honest, but enforcement has sometimes not been strict. They also complain that the extensive rules haven’t adequately curbed the influence of monied interests on state policymaking.

No surprise that the latest Elon University Poll found that only 27% of North Carolinians approve of the way the General assembly is doing its job.

Proud is the wrong descriptor for what it should be. Ashamed is more like it.

 

Where’s the leadership?

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I teach a little of Milton’s Areopagitca to my Elon class. (My class is thankful that it is only a little.) I include it because it provides the foundation for a discussion of freedom of speech and press. I like the idea that when truth and falsehood collide, truth wins.

That’s one reason this Q. & A. with Chris Robichaud of the Harvard Kennedy School caught my attention.

How can we live in an age so rich in information, with so many educated people across the world, and still seem to be susceptible to such embarrassing and deep ignorance? You would have hoped at this point that a civil society would agree on the basic facts and could get about disagreeing about the interesting things – what to do about them. That’s where disagreements are supposed to happen.

But no, we don’t even agree on the basic facts….

In this country, and this is just a confession, a lot of us were just stunned at the Birther debate. Not at first – you always expect some absurdity to arise when you have a presidential candidate whose name is Barack Hussein Obama, who’s black. That’s going terrify a certain portion of the population.

But after a while, I mean…I think that the number of people who became convinced that he wasn’t a US citizen grew after he was elected President. You start to wonder, “What the hell?” I know that’s just one example, and that may be unfair because it seems so fringe (and yet the numbers suggest it’s not as fringe as we would like). But all the same, it just causes you to scratch your head and go, “What’s going on?

He goes on to talk about the ignorance of the presidential debates where no one is interested in getting to the truth. He suggests that neither the politicians nor the media are doing much to improve the discussion, and I think he’s right. I’d like to say there is an opportunity for the mainstream media here, but I’m not confident they want to grab it.

The question is how much people really want to get to the truth, particularly if it means separating them from their emotion-fueled opinions. If tat is there, the media will follow. But the media certainly will not lead.

Good morning, Sunshine

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The N.C. Press Association has provided a great public service by posting a guide to open government and records on its site.

This new booklet has been published jointly by the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office and the North Carolina Press Association. All of the answers have been carefully crafted by lawyers to make the law as easy to understand as possible.

Also on the site: the open meetings law and the public records law.

Unfrtunately, it’s likely you will need to consult often.

While you’re at it, Sunshine Week begins tomorrow. North Carolina’s big event is at Elon University on Wednesday.

Quit screwing around; to regain trust, it’s time to change

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Craig Newmark’s survey on the credibility of various news sources is simply the latest that shows the public doesn’t have much trust in mainstream media. Not much trust in any of the mainstreamers: newspapers, TV, radio or news websites. (Yep, news websites are mainstream now.)

The survey shows that only 22 percent of respondents say that newspapers are “very credible” in reporting on politics. And that’s the top rating. Cable and network news get 21 percent, and talk radio and Internet news sites each register 13 percent.

For years, traditional news organizations have marketed themselves as trustworthy. It’s time to acknowledge that most people aren’t buying it. That bond of trust may be irrevocably broken.

So, how about we try something different? What if mainstream media covered politics differently, focusing less on the horse race and more on the issues? What if television rambled on less about, say, the Catholic Church’s fight with the Obama administration over contraception insurance and delved deeper into health insurance, period? What if the time spent dissecting who made what gaffe after each GOP debate — and forcing viewers to listen to the candidate’s handler explain what he really meant – was actually spent talking about Romney’s time at Bain, Santorum’s voting record in the Senate or Paul’s record in the House?

What if the reporters actually had the freedom to call BS when candidates or campaigns parsed the truth? (Here’s an attempt.) What if they followed the Daily Show model in covering the hypocrisy of some political candidates and government policies (without the humor, presumably)? What if television actually gave more than a soundbite and didn’t let candidates off the hook? Watch the morning news programs and it’s either he-said, she-said journalism, or the reporter asks a question, the candidate doesn’t answer, and the reporter moves to another question that the candidate doesn’t answer. In the end, the viewer gets little sustenance.

One of the common assumptions is that the public doesn’t like the sausage-making process that hard-nosed reporting is. They think it’s intrusive and rude, and it often is. Good interviewing often makes people uncomfortable because the reporter is trying to pull the truth together and match facts with what’s being said. It does get ugly. But I think the general public wants to see reporters who are independent and boldly seeking to get answers to the questions the public has. (And that isn’t which GOP candidate is leading in the polls today or an embarrassing video of Romney singing “God Bless America.”)

It’s also transparent, and transparency builds trust. (Think it doesn’t? Think of how you feel when a news exec declines to talk about something going on at his shop? Or think about your reaction when you hear a news exec who has announced layoffs say, “it won’t impact our news coverage.”)

Case in point: Jay Rosen and NYU Studio 20 took a look at the questions posed to the GOP candidates at all of the 20 debates and asked if it reflected the “citizens agenda.” (113 questions were asked about campaign strategies and negative ads!) Rosen suggested that last night’s debate viewers pose their own questions on Twitter with the hashtag #unasked. As Jay tweeted afterward, “Number of questions tonight about science: zero. Technology: zero. Climate change: zero. Small business: zero.”

There is a reason that the trust bond is broken between the public and the news media. It’s us.

Quick congrats

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Congratulations to the Charlotte Observer for winning a McClatchy President’s Award for journalism excellence in 2011. It won for its series on car inspections. The Observer’s four-part series “Failing the Test” found a sprawling government program full of problems with little evidence of improving highway safety. “This is the kind of watchdog work that affects just about everybody,” the judges said. The series made the case so convincingly that it led to immediate response from lawmakers.

Congratulations to the News & Record for an editorial calling out the City Council for denying the public a chance to evaluate candidates for the city manager’s job. This would take place under a cover of cloak-and-dagger secrecy, slipping candidates in and out of interviews without letting them see each other, the public or, especially, nosy journalists. But if the council trusts (recruiter) Burg to produce six or seven “highly qualified” candidates, and trusts its own judgment to narrow that number to two, why not trust the public to form impressions of those final two?

Congratulations to the N&O for an editorial demanding the Wake County Sheriff reveal details of a death in the county jail.  Sheriff Donnie Harrison, who is responsible for operation of the jail, has demonstrated that he unfortunately isn’t inclined to share what ought to be public information with the citizens he serves, unless he has no other choice. The sheriff’s resistance to openness isn’t appropriate for a publicly elected official and in cases such as incidents in the jail, his penchant for secrecy damages his credibility.

Congratulations, too, to the News & Record for hiring Jeffrey Gauger to become its next editor, succeeding me! I don’t know him, but have talked with him on the phone. I think he’ll be good.

Who represents the public’s interests?

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One of the great divides between journalists and public officials is over access to public information. Stated simplistically, journalists want more access; public officials want less.

Journalists represent the public when they attend meetings and seek information. They do that, not because it’s fun, but so they can pass the information onto readers and viewers. Obviously, voters put elected officials into office to represent their interests.

Who’s right? Let’s look and you decide. Courtesy of the N.C. Press Association, here are a few of the recent skirmishes between the press and elected officials.

From the Winston-Salem Journal: When the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board agrees to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle a lawsuit, it does so in closed session.

From the News & Record: Greensboro City Council voted to NOT notify the public when small groups of council members meet with city staff members to discuss policy.

From the Asheville Citizen-Times: The paper sues the Henderson County sheriff, the board of commissioners and the county’s insurance carrier in an effort to force them to release details of a settlement involving the sheriff and a female employee.

From the Lincoln Times-News: The Lincolnton City Council met privately and decided to threaten to sue a local website for libel.

From the Brunswick Beacon:  The chairman of the Board of Social Services may be removed from his chairmanship for repeatedly violating the state’s open meetings law.

From the Alamance News: Burlington City Council met behind closed doors to order up a new city incentives policy.

Don’t get me wrong; some of the actions above are allowed under state law. That doesn’t mean, though, that they represent the best interests of the public. When people can’t see what’s going on they lose trust in government, and trust is a precious commodity these days.

The publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times said it best in the story about its lawsuit.

“This isn’t the county’s money or the sheriff’s money,” Randy Hammer said. “We are going to court because this is money that belongs to people who live, work and pay taxes in Henderson County. It’s their money. And they have a right to know how it’s being spent, especially if the county is having to pay extra money because the sheriff mismanaged his responsibilities as a public servant.”