Friday, March 11, 2011

Friday Morning HB477 News Roundup

Looks as if the currently raging HB477 controversy ain't goin' away anytime soon

We'll briefly set forth the following list of this morning's HB477-topical stories, which represent, wethinks, a quite thorough survey of new stories appearing in the public press since our last WCF article on this topic:

The controversial HB477, which delivers a GRAMA-gutting blow against Utah citizens' access to most electronic government communications and many other electronic records, may be headed to the ballot as a group of citizens file an initiative petition to force a public vote:

Protestors briefly took over the Capitol building Thursday night as part of a rally against HB477:

Joel Campbell, a BYU professor and lobbyist for the Utah Press Association, goes on record with this morning's Standard-Examiner guest editorial, denying that members of the Utah media "were unavailable or unwilling to talk," and spilling the beans that HB477 sponsors closed media opponents entirely out of the discussion, despite numerous earlier attempts to help educate legislators about the existing GRAMA process:
And here's a hard-hitting Tribune editorial you're definitely not gonna wanna miss:
Looks as if the currently raging controversy ain't goin' away anytime soon; and something tells us the the legislature's anti-public information kook faction may have a made a major tactical mistake, in going toe-to-toe with the Utah media in this instance.

(A hat tip to our friends at Utah Policy Daily, btw, for helping us round up a fair portion of our fairly fancy collection of helpful morning links.)

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