From time-to-time I will be highlighting individuals who are working towards greater transparency and ethics reform in Illinois state government. Illinois State Representative Michael Tryon is one of those individuals. Rep. Tryon has worked hard over several years to secure passage of ethics reform legislation that created the Illinois Transparency & Accountability Portal. Unbelievably, even against the backdrop of the Blagojevich fiasco, this legislation faced some challenges. Rep. Tryon stayed tough and his effort to provide Illinois residents with information about how their tax dollars are spent was signed into law last year. I’ve asked Rep. Tryon to share a bit about his legislation…
Getting to Transparency – a Portal to Accountability
by State Representative Michael Tryon
It’s hard to believe that just one year ago, then Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office. His impeachment stemmed from federal criminal corruption charges, which shed light on the pay-to-play allegations that plagued Blagojevich since the moment he took office.
Following his removal from office, public trust in government and elected officials was at an all-time low, and Illinois was placed in the punch line of late night comedians across the nation.
So where do we go from here? What steps can we take to restore the public’s trust in state government? The first thing that had to be addressed was transparency, specifically transparency in Read the rest of this entry »
GlassHouse
A chronicle about transparent government, new media, empowered voters, a little bit of politics, and the personal side of my run for the Illinois House of Representatives by Ruth Munson.
The alarm went off at its usual time: 4:46 a.m. It was one of those mornings that I could have easily justified turning off the alarm, pulling the covers over my head and going back to sleep. I had already put in four days at the gym this week, my body ached, I stayed up late the night before and had a busy day planned that would go well into the evening. Another hour of sleep was earned…
I hit the snooze.
Then I remembered. Read the rest of this entry »
On January 15, 2010 Bruce began his 3,000 mile run across the United States in Jacksonville FL. He hopes to finish it on April 15 in Morro Bay, CA.
His 2010 run started last week and now thousands of people are aware of his effort because of Twitter, Facebook and Cinch. His fans are cheering him on, donating to the cause and getting the word out through their networks. Read the rest of this entry »
January 2009 saw the impeachment of Gov. Blagojevich.
Two weeks into my first term on the Elgin City Council, I arrived at city hall to introduce myself to employees. I wanted to get to know staff and was anxious to learn about the institution for which I would be making policy.
Shortly thereafter I received a phone call from the city manager’s office. Seems that one of the employees was intimidated by my visit.
By me?
It wasn’t my words that caused the employee to feel intimidated. It was his perception of the motivation behind my visit. Where I just wanted to say hello and make connections—you know, put faces to the names—he saw me as flexing muscle. Read the rest of this entry »
The Illinois State Capitol Dome image titled Capitol bulding (sp) dome (www.flickr.com/photos/mklingo/166435302/) was created by Max Kingensmith (www.flickr.com/people/mklingo/) and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-No derivative Works 2.0 Generic License. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en)
But, a glass house is not where Illinois government resides. Backroom deals, pay-for-play, and prison terms for governors have been the norm for far too long. Ethics reform has fallen short and the call for greater accountability is getting louder. Read the rest of this entry »
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About Ruth
An early adopter of all things technological, Ruth was one of the first legislators to tweet from the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives, use Facebook as a constituent outreach tool and send email newsletters to update her district.
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