Archive for January, 2010

Special Standing Committee on Government Accountability & Ethics Reform

Monday, January 25th, 2010

This was our first experiment with streaming from a House hearing room and it is less than perfect. We lost our ustream connection for a few minutes which accounts for the audio in two part. Levels were all over the place and we have some ideas on how to address that in the future. Our friends at The Missourinet were also recording the hearing and we’ve included some of their audio below.

AUDIO: Brent Martin (The Missourinet) report 1 min

AUDIO: Rep. Flook and Rep. Kander testify (30 min.)

AUDIO: Full Hearing Part 1 | AUDIO: Full Hearing Part 2

  • HB 1324– Sponsor: Bringer, Rachel L.(Rep-006) Prohibits members of the General Assembly from accepting any tangible or intangible item, service, or anything of value from a lobbyist
  • HB 1326– Sponsor: Bringer, Rachel L.(Rep-006) Changes the laws regarding campaign contributions to candidates and committees
  • HB 1337– Sponsor: Dusenberg, Gary(Rep-054) — Co-Sponsor: Allen, Sue(Rep-092) Changes the laws regarding campaign contributions to candidates and committees
  • HB 1414– Sponsor: McGhee, Michael(Rep-122) — Co-Sponsor: Tilley, Steven(Rep-106) Specifies that any elected or appointed official of the state or a political subdivision who is found guilty or pleads guilty to a felony must immediately forfeit all his or her benefits
  • HB 1434– Sponsor: Flook, Timothy(Rep-034) — Co-Sponsor: Kander, Jason(Rep-044) Changes the laws regarding ethics and lobbying

Why journalists must keep asking questions

Monday, January 25th, 2010

We’ll be taking up ethics reform this session, and…

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Post-Dispatch uses pop-ups to enhance State of State

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Steve Safran over at Lost Remote points us to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s clever treatment of Governor Nixons’s State of the State.

“…the Pop-Up edition of the State of the State mixed in fact-checking with trivia. It’s an entertaining and informative way to watch a speech – and it helps give some context to the address as well. There’s a good mix of hard facts and humor here. Above the various pop-up facts in the upper right is a counter that tells you how many times the speakers said “Missour-AH” vs “Missour-EE.” (“Missour-AH” won.) The site also carries a transcript of the speech and used that to build a Wordle.”

I’m filing this under Why The Hell Didn’t We Think of That? I can’t believe I’m recommending someone watch a State of the Speech (a second time!) but this is cool. I like th word cloud, too.