From: Reg Neale Date: Sun, 8 May 94 13:43:52 EDT Subject: NY State info access -- NOT a money issue New York's legislature is in favor of sunshine laws -- unless there is a way to stonewall them. It took a while for Capitol insiders to find a way of attacking A.10035/S.7728. This legislation was introduced March 1 by a bipartisan coalition of 11 sponsors in the Assembly, and later in the Senate by Senators Nozzolio and Libous. It would make the text of bills, member's voting records and similar information freely available to all citizens, via public information networks. Anyone with a computer and modem could access this information for just the price of a phone call. The legislature's Bill Drafting Commission has been selling this information to lobbyists and special-interest groups for years. Now the commission is protesting that if it has to give the information away, their revenue (they claim a million dollars!) will dry up and will have to be replaced by taxpayer dollars. As usual, there are things they don't want you to know. One is that state agencies and other entities are forced to pay for accessing the information, just like anyone else. That means some of the claimed revenue is simply phantom dollars that flow out of one state pocket and into another. How much? There's no way to tell. The commission is part of the legislature, and the legislature refuses to itemize its budget. The real numbers aren't available for public scrutiny, so the commission can safely claim anything it wants. In our opinion, this is just an attempt to draw attention away from the real issue. Information about what our lawmakers are doing is a taxpayer asset, generated at public expense. It is an insult to democracy to keep it from the people and sell it to the highest bidder, simply for sake of agency profit. Our information is being sold out from under us. It's being peddled to special-interest groups who use it to twist legislation to their own ends. That's the primary reason why our state government is so inefficient, tax-hungry and unresponsive. This bill has bipartisan support in both houses, but there are powerful political insiders who don't want it to happen. During this final budget negotiation, they could twist enough arms to kill it, unless you get involved. This is the final year of the current session. That means if they let it die, it will be two more years before we get another chance to move this issue up to the front burner again. Call, fax, or write your lawmakers immediately and tell them you aren't going to be satisfied with excuses this time. Your senator and assembly(wo)man will be running for election this year, so they're particularly sensitive to your input. If you aren't sure who represents you, call your local libary and ask them to look it up for you. Within the next few days, we will attempt to upload a compressed file LOBBYNYS.ZIP to ftp.eff.org. The expanded file will contain a list of all the NYS legislators, their phone and fax numbers, their committee assignments, and an excellent "Guide to Lobbying Your State Lawmaker" prepared by the N.Y. Office of the Advocate for the Disabled. The text of the bill itself is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.eff.org in directory /pub/EFF/Legislation/Foreign_and_local/NY/ab10035.* [NOTE! The zipfile mentioned above was expanded into the actual contents of the file in ASCII form, available at /pub/EFF/Issues/Activism/Foreign_and_local/NY/ Sorry for any confusion.] It might also be helpful to contact Senator Roy M. Goodman, Chairman of the Senate's Government Operations Committee, Rm. 913 Legislative Office Building Albany NY 12247; voice 518-455-2211, fax 518-455-2690. Don't pass up your chance to make a real, fundamental difference in New York's government. Join C.O.A.L., Common Cause of N.Y., and other citizen-advocacy groups in pushing for this legislation. Most of the hardware for implementing it is already in place. Don't let them tell you this is a *cost* issue. This is an *accountability* issue. Make sure your lawmakers understand that you want them to vote for this legislation and that you want it enacted into law-this session. Reg Neale, Sec'y, Citizens for Open Access to Legislation 9 May 1994