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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Ind. Gov't. - Suggestions for the new legislative leadership - Part I: The Video Archives

A new Indiana General Assembly will convene November 20th (organization day). It will have a new Speaker of the House and a new President Pro Tem. There are some concerns that the ILB strongly believes should be addressed. Here is the first.

The Video Archives of the General Assembly. Here is some background. First, from a Nov. 21, 2005 ILB entry, a quote from the Star: "The 2005 legislative session was the first year for the proceedings on the House floor to be video broadcast over the Web. That feature also will be improved this year to allow observers to see roll call votes on bills and the names of legislators who are speaking." This was followed by my comments, including:

The House also archives its session videos, which makes them much more useful and valuable. For one thing, citizens can watch in the evenings or on the weekend. To illustrate: here is the last session. We can only hope that the House maintains this archive, perhaps as a supplement to the Journal. Or as a DVD.

The same goes for the new videos of the Ways & Means meetings, and hopefully more committees will follow.

The Indiana Senate is in danger of lagging way behind here. For one thing, it did not archive its videos during the last session (or if it did, it did not make them available online). This means that the citizen or student who cannot get away from work or school to watch the General Assembly cannot do it over the Internet either, except for the times the Senate is meeting in the late afternoon or evening. And there is no indication thus far that it will extend internet coverage to its committees.

Now, from a Feb. 5, 2006 ILB entry. It begins with a quote from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette:
Allowing Hoosiers to watch the House floor debate via the Internet has been a welcome move forward into the 21st century. But what happens when a member goes too far?

House Speaker Brian Bosma was faced with that situation last week when one Republican member during debate on a bill made an inside joke about another GOP lawmaker that was construed by many to be an allegation of marital infidelity. And he did so knowing the other man’s wife was watching the proceedings on the Internet.

Bosma immediately chastised the member, who later gave a quick apology. But the damage was done.

The question then became, what do they do about the joke on the Internet archive? In the end, Bosma and House Democratic Leader Pat Bauer agreed on a motion to allow the lawmaker to withdraw his comments from the permanent record, which includes the Internet. By the next morning, the online video had been spliced in a way that cut out the comment.

Everyone seemed to agree on removing this particular item, but there are no rules written into House procedure on the issue. So what happens if a member simply embarrasses himself and wants to remove that?

Those are questions Bosma is struggling with. “This is the first time we had to deal with this issue, and we had to make some hasty decisions, maybe I should say prompt decisions, on the matter,” he said. “We are at least setting some temporary precedent until our rules can be expanded to cover this issue.”

Bosma also promised he would never unilaterally alter the video record and hopes future Speakers would not as well.

Next are the ILB comments:
More questions. The video archives of the Indiana House sessions are important Indiana historical documents. The Indiana Senate does not even maintain an archive of its session days. The House, to its credit, does, at least during the session.

But where is the archive of the 2005 House session? This was removed from the General Assembly website when this year's session began. Perhaps this historical treasure trove was summarily pitched. If not, it should again be made accessible online for the citizens of the State. And why not post them as video podcasts, so that citizens can download them and view them more easily. Many citizens do not have internet connections that permit viewing multi-hour sessions without tecnhical interference.

Thoughts. It is time for the General Assembly to move into the 21st century. Rep. Bosma has made a good start. But why leave the way our General Assembly's history is recorded and maintained up to the judgment of each individual House and Senate leader? Put it into law.

Next, take a look at this entry from May 18, 2006 that asks "Why can Ohio do it better?" Some quotes:
You can watch live video streams of the Ohio House, Senate, and Supreme Court.

Better still, there are archives. REAL ARCHIVES. The Ohio leadership presumably doesn't have the concerns the Indiana legislative leadership has expressed about providing an accessible record of its work to the public.

The Senate video archive goes back to 1997. For every day the Senate has been in session from 1997 forward, you can view the entire session day, or select portions, because the broadcast is indexed!

Recommendations to the Indiana General Assembly.

First, both Houses should stream their session days live, plus archive the videos, permanently. Currently the House archives during the session, but does not retain the videos once the next session starts. The Senate doesn't even go that far -- you can only watch the Senate session online as it happens; nothing is preserved.

Second, all committee meetings should be streamed live, plus archived. Right now, the public cannot even get a seat in a committtee hearing that allows them to see and hear what is going on.

Third, "archived" means make permanently available online. Look again at Ohio - you can watch Ohio proceedings online live or archived, going back through 1997, plus order DVD or VHS videos. Their plan is soon to make video-podcasts downloadable also.

Fourth, the House and Senate daily sessions should be indexed (eg SB #238 - Third Reading), as in Ohio, allowing the viewer to go immediately to the desired position. (It might be possible to do this in conjunction with the Journals.) In fact, the entire Ohio setup should be studied, as they seem to be light years ahread of Indiana, tech-wise!

Fifth, the process - archiving the videos, access, prohibitions against editing out portions - should be detailed in statute or in the joint rules.

In 1851 the debates and journals of the Indiana Constitutional Convention were carefully and laboriously preserved for the ages. We continue to use and reference them today. Recording and preserving today's sessions of the General Assembly is a very simple thing. But we are not doing it very well.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 8, 2006 04:11 PM
Posted to Indiana Government