Under The Power Lines

In my previous post I wrote that accountability + transparency = TRUST.

Here in South Carolina, many political activities occur behind closed doors without transparency and accountability. Lax campaign and ethics rules create a hard burden on campaigns, but leave many organizations operating in darkness. These are eight simple examples of how South Carolina’s legislators and General Assembly as a whole can use the web to strengthen accountability and gain trust. Although SC specific, these examples can be used to spur innovative ideas anywhere. Just remember – sunshine creates trust. Trust gets you reelected.

1. Personal websites.

Can you believe that there are some legislators who still don’t have websites? Yeah, and not just SOME. I haven’t actually done the research, but I would bet that close to 75% of South Carolina’s legislators do not have their own websites.

The Internet is the ultimate tool for transparency. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that voters are moving online and when they want to find out about you they are going to look on the web. Get active. Get online.

2. Twitter

Twitter is a social networking site that answers the question “what are you doing” in 160 characters. That’s what it was created for, but today it’s used much more as a micro blogging platform than to answer the question. Basically it’s a way for you to send a quick message to your voters in two sentences. You can tell them what you’re doing, or that a bill just passed, or that you need their help in calling Senator So and So to stop blocking whatever bill. You don’t even need a computer to use Twitter. You can do it from your cell phone or blackberry.

3. Roll call voting and a searchable database

Roll call voting just makes sense. To not tell your voters how you vote on important legislation, including all spending bills, is like spitting on accountability. But roll call voting isn’t enough. Hiding the record in some 500-page pdf that no one will ever read is ridiculous. Enact roll call voting and build an easy to use searchable database that allows voters to look up bills by subject, date, and legislator.

4. Nathan’s Bill

South Carolina State Representative Nathan Ballentine will be introducing legislation that helps clean up South Carolina’s ethics laws by mandating “after the pre-election filing, any contributions between that report and the election must be reported within 48 hours of receipt.” Amen brother Ballentine. Now make sure your bill makes it very clear that the reports have to be put online like all the other reports. Loopholes are loopholes and attorneys are DANG good at finding them.

5. Fully rewrite ethics laws

South Carolina’s ethics laws are a complete freakin’ joke. As I’ve said many times “just tell me what I can’t do and I won’t do it.” That’s the problem with our laws. They are so screwed up that the normal operative like me has no idea what we can and can’t do so we have to go blow a ton of money getting an attorney’s opinion. And their opinion is almost always completely different from another attorney’s, both of which are different from the SC Ethics Commissions. Speaking of the Ethics Commission, they have absolutely no teeth, so just go break the law. They won’t be doing anything about it.

Seriously, we need to fully rewrite our laws and give the Ethics Commission some real teeth. Then we need to put those laws in an easy to understand format on the web so that everyone knows what you can and cannot do.

6. 501c4 disclosure

Everyone else is doing it. I’m not going to harp on this one. They should disclose online.

7. Post all committee and floor debates to YouTube

Committee meeting rooms and the House and Senate floor are wired with videos so that they can be aired on ETV. No one is going to sit and watch this stuff on ETV just like one no one is going to sit and read the dictionary. It’s a research tool. These videos need be placed somewhere so that voters can go back and watch them when they need to. YouTube is the best place.

8. Video updates

Let’s come full circle. Can you believe that there are some legislators who still aren’t recording video updates and placing them on YouTube? Seriously! What are you thinking!? It’s FREE! Yes, free!

Just last week President-elect Barack Obama announced that he’s going to be moving the traditional Presidential weekly radio addresses to YouTube. Want to know why? Because that’s where folks are starting to get their information. It’s the same reason that newspaper sales across the country are declining. Voters are moving online and you should to.