AP and others are reporting that the Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board is seeking $200,000 immediately and another $800,000 eventually for upgrades to the 96 security cameras state troopers use to keep tabs on people in and around the Statehouse in Columbus.
The CSRAB said:
“We need to protect the governor, who is now making his office at the Statehouse; the legislature; and the citizens who visit the Statehouse daily,”
While they are upgrading cameras for security purposes, wouldn’t it make sense to put cameras in places where legislative activity takes place and stream these feeds on the web so that citizens might better keep tabs on their politicians?
After all, the legitimacy of government depends on the consent of the govern. This consent doesn’t mean as much when the deliberations of Ohio government are as difficult and time-consuming to acquire as they stubbornly remain in our information age.
Putting web cams into legislative committee rooms - where the real work of the General Assembly takes place - would put 11 million pairs of eyes into nearly every legislative hearing. The benefits would include a state government more accountable to its citizens and probably a lot more explaining to constituents by legislators of their ways of their work in Columbus. Unless, of course, the politicians figure out how many people really don’t buy the same excuses for spending over $56 billion a year that fly at the Statehouse.
I haven’t scoured legislative websites but it didn’t take too long to come up with two examples of legislatures already providing more transparency for their citizens than what the Ohio General Assembly gives to its citizens. Just this morning I dropped into a Senate Finance Committee meeting in Austin Texas, and then I paid a visit to a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in Phoenix featuring some 20 witnesses on a particular tax bill. Not literally, but via streaming web video provided by these states’ legislatures.
The ‘production values’ of the Arizona committee web cast were pretty impressive, but the simple web cam stuck in the corner of a Texas legislative meeting room opened that hearing to interested citizens across that vast state just as well.
Both of the sessions I found this morning were archived, but it appeared that real time streaming broadcasts of key committees was a regular part of the transparency services provided by Texas and Arizona for their citizens.
These Republican-controlled legislatures seem to be comfortable with greater scrutiny, unafraid to show their work, warts and all. Sooner or later it will happen here in Ohio. It would be a good thing for the Republican-controlled General Assembly to take ownership of the wave of transparency that’s penetrating governments across the country.
A taxpayer in Toledo or anywhere else in Ohio should be able to find out about what spending and taxes and other laws being actively talked about in Columbus as easily they might follow along with similar deliberations in Texas and Arizona.
The proposed security upgrade, while a reasonable action on its face, it still an example of government thinking of itself and its interests before that of citizens. Let’s be equally quick to point cameras on the meetings of the General Assembly (and other offices and agencies) for Ohioans to better follow the work of their government officials.
(Cross-posted at www.EyeOnTheStatehouse.org)
Hamilton County Commissioner Pat DeWine hopes to establish his county as the first in the United States to put all government expenditures online for public review - including everything from electronic funds transfers to purchase orders to ordinary checks.
