Illinois

State Legislation

 * Moving forward we have an opportunity with the 2010 legislative session. While we start looking for new transparency legislation let’s start looking at what road blocks you encounter when trying to cover the activity in the legislature. A list of politicians who have signed the Transparency Pledge (http://www.openillinois.org/transparency-pledge/) is a great place to start for finding allies.

News
Bureau county citizens rally for increased transparency

http://libertyleaders.illinoispolicy.org/index.php/blog/bureau-county-citizens-rally-for-increased-transparency/ Open Government in Chicago: Rahm tech and data chiefs swear its coming

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2011/06/02/open-government-in-chicago-rahms-tech-and-data-chiefs-swear-its-coming

Don Hamon's Idea of reform for the freedom of information act

http://mchenrycountyblog.com/2011/05/31/don-harmons-idea-of-reform-for-the-freedom-of-information-act/

Preckwinkle Fritchey pledge its easier to use cook county web site

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2011/04/preckwinkle-fritchey-pledge-easier-to-use-cook-county-web-site.html

Inspector general to open chicago with new transparency initiative

http://shawblog.bettergov.org/2011/03/30/inspector-general-to-open-chicago-with-new-transparency-initiative/

Where's Lisa

https://forthegoodofillinois.org/blog/2011/03/wheres-lisa/

Put black boxes on airplance not in Campaign Finance

http://blog.ilcampaign.org/2011/02/put-black-boxes-on-airplanes-not-in.html

New year means new laws for Illinois

http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-year-means-new-laws-for-illinois.html

Tracking Illinois Subsidies

http://progressillinois.com/posts/content/2010/12/10/tracking-illinois-subsidies

Blowing whistle a little louder

http://kathypsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/blowing-whistle-little-louder.html

Projects Discussed During Conference Call

 * Open House Project for Illinois – example: http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/the-open-house-project-report/
 * Heat Map of FOI Compliance
 * Journalism Trainings
 * Personal Consequences of transparency
 * FOI projects – FOI all the mayors.
 * Forcing government away from non-searchable PDFs
 * An IL Data.gov
 * Committee Voting Transparency

Resources

 * The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform - http://www.ilcampaign.org/
 * The Illinois State Board of Elections - http://www.elections.state.il.us/
 * The Illinois Secretary of State Lobbyist Database - http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/index/lobbyist.html
 * The Illinois Transparency and Accountability Portal - http://accountability.illinois.gov/
 * Includes information about state employee pay, state agency expenditures, state agency contracts, corporate accountability and professional licenses.
 * Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general, basically drafted the law that recently revised FOIA in Illinois. Her office/site would be a good resource - http://www.ag.state.il.us/
 * She's generally good on transparency, but has major issues since she's the daughter of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, arguably the most powerful person in Illinois politics.
 * Attorney General's site just on FOIA - http://foia.ilattorneygeneral.net/default.aspx
 * Contact info for Kent Redfield - http://igpa.uillinois.edu/person/kent-redfield

Survey Question

 * What do you think real time data will look like?
 * What do you want your government information to look like?
 * What obstacles do you see getting in the way of real time information?

Bloggers
Mark Cavers