online pharmacy prescription 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010online pharmacy prescription 2008 and 2009
The total amount of spending that Sunshine Review uncovered for . But this is clearly only a partial figure. The real number must be exponentially more. In a purely unscientific fashion, the amount spent on lobbying between 2005-2010 in Cook County is more than twice as much at $1,559,980, considering the 3 years of contracts not disclosed and not even considering membership in .
From my very subjective perspective, wasn’t stonewalling me. They just didn’t prioritize their resources or time to respond to my request. Which is just as unacceptable as them having done it on purpose, because the result is the same: citizens and journalists having to go through rings of fire in order to get information that rightfully belongs to them.
There’s always room for improvement when it comes to transparency and taking your constituents seriously, and Cook County is no excuse.
September 9, 2010 by
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State and local governments are not transparent in how taxpayer dollars are spent and the people’s business is conducted. An especially good example is taxpayer funded lobbying.
is the use of public funds to lobby for even more taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers pay twice for this: not only do their hard earned dollars pay to hire lobbyists, but citizens must also foot the bill for the increased government spending resulting from the “successes” of these special interests.
Most citizens have no idea that tax dollars are spent to hire lobbyists because without , taxpayer-funded lobbying is rarely shared with citizens or journalists. Only through time consuming (and frequently frustrating) is this information pried from the government.
Beginning in March, 2010, Sunshine Review sent Freedom of Information Act requests to all . In an , data from the 10 most populous counties alone shows $6.2 million dollars spent between 2005 and 2010.
The Sunshine Review analysis looked at lobbying contracts and membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Taxpayer-funded lobbying associations are groups that are funded at least in part by public dollars. In turn, they lobby for the collective interests of government bodies. In total, 31 lobbyists represent the counties, and the counties hold at least 69 memberships to taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.
What’s needed is a higher standard of transparency in state and local government. State legislation and local ordinances requiring —not only in but around the country—would help citizens scrutinize spending.
Government transparency saves money: it prevents fraud and it brings light to questionable spending. Perhaps the $6.2 million spent in lobbying by Illinois counties is justifiable. But who is to say? The people who can truly answer that question, citizens, are being denied their voice in government by having this information kept from them.
Visit Sunshine Review for more information and for county specific data.
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September 8, 2010 by
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A few months back, the released a report heralding the transparency of on the state’s disclosure of its taxpayer-funded lobbying.
is just what it sounds like: lobbying funded by citizens’ money. Local and state governments use public funds, which come from tax dollars, to lobby for legislation and to attempt to gain money from other governments.
Not much is known about this process, which is why the about Minnesota’s disclosure. Every year, the Minnesota state auditor releases the , which details the cost of lobbying by entities in the state. The report includes payments to taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, as well as contracts with lobbyists. A very good job of , especially considering the archives for this information go back to 1989.
Or so it would seem. The nonprofit recently released a report highlighting the federal lobbying spending of 26 public entities in the state. The entities spent $5.2 million since 2006 .
So what’s the problem? Federal lobbying . According to the Freedom Foundation president, this needs to change:
“It’s critical that taxpayers have an understanding of how much their local governments are spending on lobbying,” he said. “It is important for them to know how much their cities and counties are spending to lobby legislators in St. Paul. It stands to reason it is just as important for them to know how much they are spending to lobby congressmen in Washington, D.C.”
That makes perfect sense. Minnesota should be lauded for its efforts in being accountable to its citizens, but in transparency, there’s always room for improvement. Federal lobbying should be disclosed as readily as state and local lobbying is. Minnesota will be all the better for it.
August 3, 2010 by
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More is bubbling up in Texas. It was revealed earlier this week that the authority for the Port of spends a half-million dollars a year on lobbyists in Washington.
“If you don’t have people in D.C. to protect yourself, you’re going to be in trouble,” John LaRue, the port’s executive director, said. “We’re not talking hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, we’re talking about hundreds of millions.”
Lobbying with taxpayer dollars happens at every level of government, some of the funds help local government entities, but other have proven to be wasteful spending. Like yesterday’s example of . This spending needs to be and scrutinized by taxpayers, just like any other government spending.
July 30, 2010 by
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The Evergreen Freedom Foundation found that 68 agencies in Washington had failed to disclose . The Transit Authority was one of the worst offenders and has’t complied with transparency laws by failing to report its lobbying activity for seven years, amounting to to $800,000 in spending.
July 29, 2010 by
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We give in a B- on the information it discloses on its website. Which is a decent grade. One of the check marks the county misses on is for “Lobbying.” The county does not disclose on its website what it pays dues to, or what lobbyists it hires to represent the county before the Illinois State Legislature or the federal government.
Most local . And because these lobbyists are a part of public affairs, they should be disclosed.
online of those who lobby them. Which is great! The section of Cook County’s website is called “. The county is the largest of counties and it contains the largest city in the state, . Naturally, this is interesting information:
The site, proposed by County Clerk David Orr and a bi-partisan group of commissioners, also lists how much lobbyists were paid.
Orr said 188 lobbyists representing 89 businesses reported on time. They contacted about 60 government officials and were paid a total of $1.12 million.
“You can track who they were lobbying and, for the most part, why,” Orr said. “They made 576 contacts with those roughly 60 people, and that’s just in the first half of 2010.”
Still, while this is great information, it still doesn’t make up for the fact that Cook County still does not disclose what lobbyists it contracts. Cook County as a whole has at least one lobbyist, as , and its departments and subsidiaries have more. Not to mention the dues paid to organizations like the .
The county’s efforts in are laudable, but it can still take the next step forward. Lobbying by counties isn’t rare. Especially because of its prevalent nature, local governments should take the initiative to making that information available to its taxpayers. If anything, they should do it to get an extra point on our checklist and upgrade their B- to a B. Or, you know. For its citizens.
June 8, 2010 by
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Kentucky’s transparency website, is being recognized by the .
has since greatly improved. Last year, the Center for Study of Responsive Law criticized the state for not publishing the full text of state contracts online, and the state would have been considered one of the .
This year, however, has taken the initiative to change. In April this year, as the only state to receive an “A” rating for transparency in a report published by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, whose findings we include on our .
In addition to its transparency website, Kentucky operates , which publishes information about projects.
Another sign that is Senate Bill 88, which passed and will soon become law. This bill requires more transparency from such as the Kentucky League of Cities and the Kentucky Association of Counties. The Kentucky Association of Counties, at least, is taking their new mandated responsibilities seriously. It aims to become a model for other taxpayer-funded lobbying associations as far as their .
I’ll end this post with a hopeful quote from the Center for Study of Responsive Law that summarizes the significance of Kentucky’s turn-around:
“Kentucky went from a worst performer to one of the best full-transparency states all in one year. This remarkable progress demonstrates the ease and speed with which all states could open their books to their citizens.”
May 6, 2010 by
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The is a little irked about . They way they describe it, the practice boils down to governments “spending tax dollars to persuade the state Legislature to give them…more tax dollars.” And NTU asks two important questions:
*Couldn’t that money be used more wisely?
*Why do towns even need these lobbyists?
Two questions governments have a duty to answer to taxpayers. NTU also noted a common : “Municipalities should be a priority for their state legislators, who are elected to represent those very towns.”
The main problem for NTU, however, isn’t necessarily government lobbying, but rather the . Laws on public lobbying are not as demanding as those on private lobbying. It therefore becomes easy to obscure the already-convuluted chain that taxpayer dollars go through in order to end up as payment to lobbying firms. The solution is better legislation. State in (D-) has introduced a bill in the that would require towns to report any lobbyists they hire, the purpose, and how much the firm was paid.
The senator, like NTU, is also confused by the practice and . “Why do they need a middle man? Municipalities are our most important clients. Towns don’t need a lobbyist to come to my office. I can’t remember a single time when I thought they were getting their money’s worth [by hiring lobbyists].”
At Sunshine Review, we’ve been working to find and compile information about taxpayer-funded lobbying and . Please in adding to public understanding about what it is that your government does.
For more New Jersey resources, see the links below. And be sure to join us at #FOIAchat on tomorrow from 2-3 pm EST, where we’ll be live chatting about FOIA in the news.
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March 29, 2010 by
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A few weeks ago, that would have prohibited school districts from routing taxpayer money to fund bureaucratic advocacy groups, or .
Representative Boyd Brown introduced the budget amendment, which would eliminate taxpayer-funded lobbying and prohibit the use of tax dollars for dues at any “organization which employs a lobbyist.” The bill died March 18 by one vote.
The estimates that every dollar collected by . And in the state, less than half of each dollar spent on public education reaches the classroom. You do the math.
While an outright ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying associations didn’t work out this time in South Carolina, one path concerned citizens can take is to follow the footsteps of journalists in New Hampshire, who ultimately made it so that . As usual, the prescription is for citizens to do the hard work to get governments to give up information.