We’re working hard to get the J-C site/blog archives up again.

I listen to dozens of speakers every year, the majority of them are political.  Truth be told I have sat through a few horrible presentations but on the whole I like to hear what other people are working on and thinking about.  It occurred to me last week while researching an upcoming speaker that I was more focused on what I am going to say, ie the questions I ask, then what the speaker was going to say.  But if I am spending the 30 minutes before each event thinking only about myself what would happen if I had not bothered to prepare?  Do most people spend the first half hour of every speech thinking about how to stump the speaker or what they can say?

Listening first solves problems; in school I did better when I listened fully to the instructions before beginning a task or asked a question.  Maybe Politicians and all the politically minded of us should listen first before forming an opinion.

So Thanks to all of our Elected Officials for coming home to here what we have say.

Interesting thoughts about the potential of open government:

Now, imagine if someone … document[ed]a day in the life of Senator Ben Nelson, currently in the middle of heated debate about health care legislation. It’s not hard. You check the general schedules of his committees and such beforehand, research powerful, under-the-radar staff and other relevant people on the Washington Post‘s WhoRunsGov.com, go through simple security at the Capitol (far easier than an airport), find Nelson’s office in the Hart building, camp out in his waiting area, maybe ask the person at the front desk some questions, find some press in the hallways and ask some questions (maybe visit the Russell rotunda, where the television crews do their spots), stalk the cafeteria (there’s a great coffee shop called Cups in the basement) and listen for people saying “Nelson,” go back to his office and see him leaving to walk down the hall to a committee hearing, take photos of the staff with him on your Samsung ST-1000 with wi-fi and geo-tagging and upload the pics to Bing Maps and Facebook, go to the sub-committee hearing and tape it from a Flip in your coat pocket while you tweet live notes, upload your Flip video to YouTube while you follow Nelson to his next meeting, and so forth.

Well,  finals are over so I can take myself off writer’s block.

I’ve been working on this for a week or so, but for those of you who have no idea what’s going on, let’s catch up:

The Gist:

The County Commission will be “deciding” in the next month or so on a proposal from the County Election Clerk, to include the consolidation of precincts from 102 to 42 and the closing and condensing of 13 polling places, including the polling place on campus and at the courthouse.  Other than the proposed closings and consolidation, there is no plan to research the affect of how the closings will affect voters, or a plan to mitigate any negative effects.

The proposal came to light about 2 1/2 weeks ago.    The only meeting for public comment will be held tomorrow, December 16th 1:30 – right in the middle of finals week – a time when 25% of the voting population will be unavailable.

Just Citizens and Forward Montana teamed up for an OpEd in the Missoulian yesterday and the County officials responded with what sounds like a decision.

We think closing the polling place on  campus is particularly egregious.  It services over 1200 new voters to Missoula,  most of whom are new to the area, let alone the University.  Forcing them to go to a polling place in the city could dissuade them from voting.

Most importantly, this entire process is messed up.  With only two months for people to understand this drastic change to democracy in Missoula, it seems that very little process has been considered for the breadth and depth of the overhaul.

Ultimately, if changes must be shoved down our throats right this very second (never let a serious crisis go to waste, right?) we should be condensing the precincts – which will eliminate a number of costly poll judges, and scrap the part about closing the polling places until enough research, thought and public input is included.

“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system,” Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1932, “that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

The above quote is from a blog post about the Open Government Initiative on the White House blog.

I guess the concept is only good when a state is following the Administration’s orders.