Category: Washington Politics (Page 20 of 27)

For some reason, TVW didn’t cover the last Public Disclosure Commission meeting. So, I emailed over the PDC, wondering about last week’s meeting where they were supposed to cover their rules interpretation regarding bloggers and the internet.

Lori Anderson wrote back:

from Lori Anderson
to Emmett O’Connell
date Oct 30, 2007 11:13 AM
subject RE: draft Interpretation 07-04

They made one change and approved it. They removed the reference to Interpretation 07-03 in the header section. The interpretation will be on-line later today at (here).

We appreciate your interest.

Lori Anderson
Staff – WA State Public Disclosure Commission
PH (360) 664…

I was going to wait until they had posted their new interpretation, but the afternoon went without anything going up. I think its important to note not actually a rule or WAC, but rather how they see the rules).

Here is a pdf of the draft interpretation that Lori referred to in her email. Here is a great rundown of what that draft document is all about.

And some other links:
The PDC and bloggers
Panel Discussion of Issues Related to Internet Campaign Activity in Washington State
Blogs about politics on radar of state elections officials
State Regulation of Palousitics?
PDC talks about regulating internet activity
PDC contemplating Internet regulations

I’ll post up the new interpretation when it goes online.

So, who is actually reading these emails?

Sent to both Dino Rossi’s email form and that of the governor. See what happens now.

UPDATE: Rossi’s thanks me for sending my emails as says he looks forward to reading them. Lame.

I mean, an email form isn’t all that revolutionary. From Dino’s speech yesterday:

Starting today, if you and your neighbors see things that need to change… “tellDino.com”

And I plan to keep this website in place when I’m governor.

If you’re frustrated by poor customer service in state government – tellDino.com

Imagine how much better you would be treated by state agencies when everyone knows that you will have a direct line to the governor… and also share your ideas on how to make things better.

And you won’t have to register your e-mail address with me. So if state workers want to share their ideas, it can be anonymous.

Today, I know many hard-working state workers feel like they can’t be candid and open with their thoughts.

Now you can… tellDino.com
Imagine what a change just that little reform will bring.

The actual governor already has an email form that anyone can fill out.

Email forms for politicians or other powerful people types aren’t exactly new, and Dino’s framing of his as something special is troubling. He seems to want to have us think that he really is listening to us, but he isn’t doing anything new to actually do that.

Rich Roesler over at Eye on Olympia notices the same weird language over at Tell Your Uncle Dino. From what he’s saying on his new campaign website, it really does seem like Dino Rossi is thinking that the state government would come after any state employee that was associated (even in a small way) with his campaign.

Here’s more information on the actual Whistleblower Program, which is run by the State Auditor’s Office:

The law requires that whistleblower identities be kept confidential. It makes retaliation unlawful and provides remedies for retaliation. Reports of asserted retaliation are filed with the Washington State Human Rights Commission. The Commission will investigate the claim and take appropriate action. Civil penalties for retaliation may include a fine of up to $3,000 and suspension for 30 days without pay. At a minimum, a letter of reprimand is placed in the retaliator’s personnel file.

Does Dino think the auditor is doing a bad job?

For me, the most interesting part of Rossi’s one hour old campaign is his try at transferring the fun loving nature of his Idea Bank to his new campaign.

Guess what everyone, you can email Dino Rossi. About anything! Anything that’s on your mind, even if you’re a state employee, just type in your concern, hit submit and Dino might even read what you wrote.

Before I get on to the technical fun of this post, I have to point out that the Rossi campaign is implying that by asking Dino something in public, a state employee can face retribution. Are they serious?

I know there are many state employees and others out there who prefer this approach – and I respect their feelings.

This attempt at passing off an email form as some direct connection to the candidate is already lame, but it also looks like the form itself isn’t working. I’ve posted the entire code I pulled at 11:05 this morning below, but this is the interesting part:

  <form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="">

From what I know about html code, if the “action” part is blank, the form doesn’t do anything. You’re literally sending your concerns to Dino into thin air. But, I could be wrong, so check out the code below and tell me if I’m wrong.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"></p> <p><head></p> <p><title>Dino Rossi for Governor 2008</title></p> <p></head></p> <div> </p> <div> </p> <p>Welcome to www.telldino.com.</p> <p>This website was created to provide you with an easy and protected way to express your thoughts. I have always believed the best ideas come from the people – not Olympia insiders. </p> <p> That is why I encourage you to share your comments, concerns and ways to improve our state. </p> <p> </p> <p>Please know this website is not a chat room and your identity will not be made public. You may even submit your ideas anonymously. I know there are many state employees and others out there who prefer this approach – and I respect their feelings. </p> <p> </p> <p>In closing, I make this promise to you: When I am your governor, this website will remain active. And it will be as important to me then as it is to me now. </p> <p> </p> <p>– Dino </p> <p> </div> <div> <table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1"> </p> <tr> </p> <td colspan="2"> </td> <p> </p> <td>Comments:</td> <p> </tr> <p> </p> <tr> <td colspan="2" valign="top"> </p> <table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1"> </p> <tr> </p> <td>Name:</td> <p> </p> <td></td> <p> </tr> <p> </p> <tr> </p> <td>Email: </td> <td></td> <p> </tr> <p> </table> <p> </p> <div align="right"></div> </td> <p> </p> <td><textarea name="comments" cols="70" rows="8"></p> <div>Paid for by Dino Rossi for Governor 2008</div> <p>

UPDATE: I hate probably not being right. My buddy with all the smarts just said the form “probably” works, as the form will just submit to itself (the homepage technically is telldino.com/index.asp).

Anyone else want to chime in on this one?

Here’s an important note from WINtegrated Solutions’s blog (hat tip to Fuse):

• The PDC wants to “not interfere with the free flow of political information via the internet, particularly when the information is provided at no or little cost.”
• The PDC recognizes the “internet is unique and evolving and warrants a restrained regulatory approach at this time.”
• Where possible, “state regulation of Internet activity will follow the Federal Election Commission approach” (which does not regulate or require disclosure for uncompensated bloggers, and only requires disclosure on expenditures by people buying ads or paying consultants).
  

Read the entire post, its a good read.

A lot of the conversation the PDC had earlier this fall about internet regulation seemed to fall around work already done by the Federal Election Commission (movie here).