Just a couple of items to kick the primary election hangover and get rolling in the new week.
My old friend Chuck Smith (Of Two Minds Blog), a graduate of Lanai High School now living in the San Francisco Bay Area, had some caustic comments after seeing a recent Honolulu Magazine feature on expensive homes.
His comment: The featured homes “reflect an economy based on financial speculation whose wealth is concentrated in a parasitic financial sector.”
His lede:
The glossy Mid-Pacific yuppie advert vehicle Honolulu Magazine recently ran a cover story (the September 2010 issue) of irresistible real-estate pornography titled “The 25 Most Expensive Homes in Hawaii” that unintentionally revealed the true nature of the U.S. economy.
The homes, valued in the $30 million range, were typically located in exclusive coastline enclaves: no big surprises in either the locations or the bubble-economy valuations.
What might surprise anyone who still clings to the quaint belief that America’s great wealth is generated from actually producing goods or services of global value is who owns the vast majority of these villas: investment bankers and hedge fund managers.
There’s lots more. Chuck always provides an insightful read. Check it out.
And on a completely different note, the Sunlight Foundation last week recommended a series of reforms that would increase openness in Congress. The Foundation is an excellent resource and has developed several very useful applications of digital technology to the task of increasing accountabilityIt’s an interesting list.
• Post public ethics filings online. These documents—which include personal financial disclosures, travel reports and recusals, as well as congressional ethics reports—should be made available free to the public and digitized in a structured data format.
• Strengthen congressional ethics. The Office of Congressional Ethics annual budget should be doubled, and its written reports to the public should be posted online. Additionally, all House Ethics Committee meetings should be open to the public unless it pertains to specific allegations against an individual lawmaker.
• Post bills online for 72 hours. The House has routinely followed the 72-hour rule, but it should be required for all non-emergency legislation and Conference Reports.
• Create an Earmarks Database. All earmarks, earmark requests and related documentation should be posted online in a centralized database.
• Open Congressional Committees. The following committee information should be posted online: vote records in XML files; official transcripts within 21 days of a hearing and unofficial transcripts within 24 hours; advance notice of hearing schedules; and committee reports, among others.
A one-pager describing Sunlight’s recommendations is available here and the full list of more than 60 recommendations is available here.
How would these recommendations be adapted for our Legislature?
• Legislative travel reports and recusals should be made public and posted online.
• Post bills, including proposed drafts, online for 72 hours.
• Post district CIP requests by legislators online, as well as budget provisos that direct spending.
• House and Senate Journals should be published in draft form and available online as soon as available or within 48 hours, and final corrected versions, with remarks inserted, within 21 days.
This will be an interesting conversation to start when the new legislature is seated, won’t it? Perhaps these are issues to be inserted into the campaign.