Date: Sun, 29 May 1994 13:22:10 -0700 From: Jim Warren Subject: GovAccess.036: Census data; NJ LegInfo; Calif. Secy.of State loot lists May 29, 1994 [I patched this together around the first of May, but have been *massively* overloaded and/or infected with Flakeotis Californicus. Hot dang! - ya just can't trust volnteer labor to do *any* consumptive work at all, no more! What's more, I'm about a month and a half back-uped in my email, so if you send time-sensitive email to me, better call or fax to tell me about it. Some GovAccess postings that will follow shortly will illustrate some of my excuses. Honest! - I only spent two of the last thirty days looking at live-aboard boats on which to escape the madding crowd - needed fantasies. And I don't even remember how to *spell* "social life," any more. :-( Blushing and cringing apologies herewith offered. --jim] CENSUS BUREAU DATA COMING ON THE INTERNET >Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 23:13:29 -0500 (EST) >From: "Eric G. Grant" >To: gopher-announce@boombox.micro.umn.edu > > *** BETA TEST *** BETA TEST *** BETA TEST *** > >The United States Bureau of the Census has opened an information >server on the internet. Please explore our service and tell us >what you think. Connect to our beta site by pointing your client >software to our universal resource locators (URL's): > > http://www.census.gov/ # use with mosaic, lynx, etc > gopher://gopher.census.gov # use with gopher > ftp://ftp.census.gov/pub # use with ftp > >For those of you using gopher you can get to us by: > gopher gopher.census.gov > >Also, we plan to offer a majordomo mail server in the near future. > >If you have problems, questions, suggestions, etc, send email to: > gatekeeper@census.gov &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& NEW JERSEY LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION FOR THE INTERNET : BULLETIN NO.1 Forwarded by howarlof@CLASS.ORG Thu Mar 3 19:28:52 1994 Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 11:53:14 -0800 From: Paul Axel-Lute March 3, 1994 Attached is the text of a bill endorsed by the New Jersey Law Librarians Association, to make New Jersey statutes and legislative bills available on the Internet without usage fees. Also attached is an explanatory statement. The draft bill has been submitted to the Chairmen of the Senate and Assembly State Government Committees. Further bulletins will be issued to inform you of the bill number and progress of the bill, and to suggest actions in support of its enactment. [Bill-text omitted here in GovAccess. For copy, contact Axel-Lute. --jim] The bill has two purposes: (1) to make the most current version of the statutory law as widely available as possible, fulfilling the government's obligation to promulgate the law so that it can be obeyed; and (2) to facilitate democratic government by making the texts of pending bills readily available to the public for feedback to the Legislature. The states of California, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Utah presently offer full-text legislative information via the Internet without usage fees. The Office of Legislative Services presently operates an Electronic Legislative Information System, designed primarily for the use of the Legislature itself, but also available to non- governmental subscribers for $55 per month ($25/month for additional users at same site) plus 75 cents per connect minute. This system includes the "New Jersey Permanent Statutes Database" (a very current compilation of the statutory law); texts of all bills in the current Legislature, with status information and subject-heading access; the Legislative Calendar; committee membership information; and a "Private Databases Program" enabling automatic tracking of particular bills or subjects. The bill is partly modeled on California Government Code section 10248 (added by 1993 Statutes chapter 1235). It would require OLS to make the statutes, bill texts, bill tracking information, legislative calendar and committee membership information available on the Internet without access charges. The bill would allow OLS to continue to provide a fee-based service with added-value components, including the Private Databases Program, full-text word searching, and archives of bill texts from previous Legislatures. OLS would not, however, have a monopoly on the provision of such service. Revenue from non-governmental subscribers to the OLS system is estimated at $120,000 per year. The cost of maintaining the exterior connection is estimated at less than $10,000 per year. For a worst-case scenario for the fiscal impact of this bill, assume complete loss of the external revenue, and a doubling of the exterior connection cost. This would mean an additional amount of $140,000 per year to be covered by general tax revenue---about four cents per year from each of New Jersey's approximately 3.5 million taxpayers. (There would also be an initial cost for additional equipment, on the order of $10,000.) New Jersey executive departments also pay OLS for use of the legislative system, at the reduced rate of 45 cents per connect minute. Presumably, OLS would lose much of this internal revenue, as departments find it cheaper to access the information through the Internet. There could therefore be budgetary adjustments lowering the departmental budgets and correspondingly increasing the OLS budget, with zero net fiscal effect. Paul Axel-Lute Rutgers Law Library tel.(201) 648-5977 or -5964 Collection Dev't 15 Washington St. axellute@andromeda.rutgers.edu Librarian Newark NJ 07102 USA rev.3/2/94 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& CORRECTION : SECY.OF STATE CANDIDATES NOT YET INVITED TO SUBMIT COMPUTERIZED DISCLOSURES In California, campaign-finance disclosures for candidates seeking state office are filed with the Secretary of State's Office. In January and again in March, that Office invited the Governor candidates to voluntarily file their disclosures in computerized form, along with their required paper disclosures. I asked press contact Melissa Warren (no relation :-) in that Office if the candidates for Secretary of State had also been invited to volunteer digital filings. She said that they had, but only Acting Secretary of State Tony Miller had done so (in March). He did. On 4/18, I faxed a query about this to all of the candidates, asking for their positions on computerized disclosures, and asking why they had not voluntarily filed in computer form - requesting a prompt reply since I would be reporting on it and was "on deadline." On 4/20, after no responses from any of the candidates, I reported in GovAccess.034 that Miller was the only Secy of State candidate to volunteer computerized disclosures. True, but it turns out that the other candidates had not yet been asked to do so, by the Secy.of State's office. CANDIDATES' RESPONSES - AND WOO'S NON-RESPONSE On 4/22, Assembly Member Bill Jones responded by fax, stating, "I have not received the request for computerized filings," but that, "Per your suggestion, I plan to submit my future reports by electronic filing." Neat! - Definative committment, in writing (as I'd requested). On 4/26, Bill Julian called. He's Legislative Consultant to Assembly Member Gwen Moore's legislative committee (though not one of her Secy-of-State campaign staff). He said Moore's campaign Treasurer didn't recall receiving such a request, and asked how they might do it. (I suggested asking the Secy of State's Office, but thought a computer filing would be accepted by them in almost any form, since it was all voluntary.) No commitment. No written or faxed response since then. Bill also told me of Moore's AB 3615. Apparently, it proposed computerized filings, but was just killed in the Assembly Elections Committee with Chairwoman Diane Martinez (D-East L.A.) providing the swing-vote against it. (Bill said he didn't know why.) Los Angeles City Council Member Mike Woo, the third Secy-of-State candidate (who has raised the most loot), hasn't bothered to respond at all, though he has a staffed Secy-of-State campaign operation and fax machine. SECY OF STATE'S PRESS OFFICE GOOFED I asked Sos's Ms. Warren about those who said they didn't recall an invite to volunteer digital filings.. She checked further and said she had been mistaken; that copies of the Gov-candidates' invitation-to-file-digitally had been sent to all the legislators (including Moore and Jones), but that explicit invitations had NOT yet been sent to the non-Governor candidates. (I urged that they do so, promptly.) MOORE'S BILL WOULD IMPACT SECY OF STATE OPERATIONS, BUT SHE NEVER INVOLVED 'EM I also asked Ms. Warren about Moore's AB 3615, since it would *significantly* impact the Secretary of State's operations. She wasn't aware of it although part of her function is to work with legislators on bills impacting the SoS. Apparently, Moore and her staff never mentioned the bill to the Secretary of State, much less involved them in drafting it (as is more or less customary), and didn't seek their support before the Assembly Elections Committee -- where it was killed through lack of adequate support. Similarly, Moore and Hayden apparently didn't know about each other's bills, even though Hayden's SB 758 addresses *exactly* the same issue and Moore's former chief consultant, who has been doing some work for her, is a GovAccess recipient and knows a great deal about my proposal and, presumably, SB 758 which is its legislative implementation vehicle. Further, Bill Julian, who's generally on top of things, said he wasn't aware that SB 758 had anything to do with computerized campaign filings. And although Bill said AB 3615 reflected many of my January recommendations on how computerized filings might be economically implemented, and Bill and I have known each other since 1991, and we have repeatedly discussed computer- aided govt-access -- especially when I was trying to get Moore to support AB 1624, last year -- nonetheless, this was the first time they ever mentioned to me that Moore was considering such legislation. Unmentioned until I asked about Moore's not filing her disclosures digitally. And only *after* the vote that killed it (in the absence of overpowering public support). *Amazing* way to conduct the tax-payers' and voters' business! &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Politicians are like diapers; they need changing often, and for the same reason. [via gam@lll-crg.llnl.gov (George A. Michael)] Mo' as it Is. --jim Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814 >> To join or drop the GovAccess list, email to jwarren@well.sf.ca.us .<< >> Permission herewith granted for unlimited reposting and recirculation.<<