{"id":10089,"date":"2009-12-09T11:15:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T18:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=10089"},"modified":"2009-12-10T07:49:37","modified_gmt":"2009-12-10T14:49:37","slug":"homans-helps-government-enter-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/12\/homans-helps-government-enter-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Homans helps government enter the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo by Kevin Steinhardt\/flickr.com<\/p><\/div>\n

When the Legislature took its first baby steps<\/a> into webcasting earlier this year, many lawmakers had fears like these:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Will this video be used against me during an election year if I say something stupid?<\/p>\n

\u2022 But I don\u2019t want my constituents to see me sleeping while I\u2019m supposed to be working.<\/p>\n

\u2022 If we webcast, we can\u2019t operate in the dark any longer. Everyone will know what we\u2019re doing. (Oh no!)<\/p>\n

But webcasting took hold anyway, thanks to the rogue efforts of state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones and media outlets including the New Mexico Independent and KUNM radio. The Independent added liveblogging, creating another forum for debate parallel to the ongoing legislative proceeding.<\/p>\n

Their work pushed the Legislature to do something official. But the Legislature\u2019s webcasting isn\u2019t archived, so the recordings created by Arnold-Jones, the Independent and others, along with the liveblogging, are the closest thing we have to permanent records of legislative proceedings.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

In recent months, the Independent has led the way in using webcasting as a tool to make government more accessible. But after the news outlet webcast and liveblogged<\/a> a recent meeting of the Richardson Administration\u2019s Budget Balancing Task Force<\/a>, Taxation and Revenue Secretary Rick Homans, chairman of the task force, decided to step up.<\/p>\n

He announced on Tuesday that there will be official webcasts<\/a> of the remaining two meetings of the task force on Thursday in Farmington and Dec. 17 in Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

Homans told me he has been a fan of the webcasting and liveblogging that\u2019s taken place this year. During legislative sessions, it gave him a way to go back and watch meetings at his own pace and on his own time — so he already understands the benefit.<\/p>\n

In short, if it made government meetings more accessible to him, there\u2019s no doubt it will make the work of the task force more accessible to New Mexicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really couldn\u2019t come up with a reason not to (webcast),\u201d Homans told me. \u201cIt just seemed like the right thing to do. \u2026 If we\u2019re going to make any changes to the tax code, we need as much thoughtful assistance as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agreed. Homans gets it. Let\u2019s hope others in state government follow his example. The Legislature should expand webcasting to include audio and video of all its meetings \u2013 including committee meetings held in Santa Fe and interim meetings held around the state. The Richardson administration should webcast all meetings of its task forces. Legislative and administration news conferences should be webcast. All of it should be archived.<\/p>\n

Webcasting is cheap. Budgetary concerns are not a valid reason to oppose webcasting.<\/p>\n

Thanks for helping state government enter the 21st Century, Secretary Homans.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502 Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502 Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Webcasting has made the Legislature more accessible for Tax and Rev Secretary Rick Homans, so he\u2019s decided to use the same tool to make the Budget Balancing Task Force more accessible to New Mexicans. Let\u2019s hope others in state government follow his example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[118,111,107],"class_list":["post-10089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-economy","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}