In March, Harvard wrapped up its 2012 Harvard College Innovation Challenge. The challenge is put on by the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH), part of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. This year, TECH and the Innovation Challenge launched a new award – the Public Sector Innovation Award – which looked for [...]
Denver-based LegiNation has launched a new database – BillTrack50 which helps users navigate bills at the state level to find relevant current and proposed legislation. The database was announced at the NonProfit Technology Conference. Creators of the database point to recent public protests such as those over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the [...]
Sunshine Week, a week devoted grading state governments on their transparency recently concluded, rating most states with failing grades. In response, states are looking at new measures designed to improve transparency and provide more information to the public. In Nevada, lawmakers have proposed bills that would make the state legislature subject to Open Meetings rules. [...]
The Oklahoma state legislature is looking at a measure that would apply the Open Records Act to the statehouse. Oklahoma is one of only five states left that do not subject their state legislature to open records laws.
Two states are making strides in improving transparency in government. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that votes taken in open meetings must be recorded, even if they are not roll-call votes. In New Mexico, the Senate has just approved a bill that will make information about employees of government contractors available online to the [...]
New Jersey is looking at two bills that would reform exiting open meetings and open records laws in the state. Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) introduced the bills which are designed to broaden access to government records and increase transparency. The bills follow a year of harsh criticism over the state officials love/hate relationship [...]
Maryland is trying to give local business owners more incentive to grow the economy with a series of measures. They’ve launched an online database of all financial incentives available for job creation, and economic development. The database will support a variety of other online tools for business owners, designed to help them while also increasing [...]
New York is looking at a new measure that aims to increase transparency in the state government. The bill will require the Assembly to make meeting materials available to the public online either before or at the start of meetings.
Officials in Arizona are pushing for increased transparency in the state, in the wake of questions raised over dealings between state officials and lobbyists. Secretary of State Ken Bennett and State Representative Kimberly Yee are pushing a new measure that would put more sunlight on the financial disclosure statements and lobbyist filings of the state’s [...]
