Legislative Counsel Imposes Backwards Web Policy
Today’s Theo reports that Legislative Counsel has directed the removal of all non-governmental links from the websites of Oregon lawmakers.
While some legislators said colleagues had included links to ballot measure campaigns on their Web pages, Henderson said no complaints had been received about any Web link. Still, temporarily removing the pages was seen as the best option, he said.
“We just figured this was something where we’d better do something proactively” rather than waiting for a problem to develop, he said. “We tend to err on the side of caution.”
According to the article, Rep. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) now plans to introduce legislation “to allow legislators to decide what was or was not appropriate to include on their Web pages, knowing they would be seen by voters and the media.”
Thatcher is correct, although I’ll reserve final judgement until I see the specifics of whatever proposal she comes up with.
In this day and age, the trend needs to be towards a greater flow of information, not less of one. If individual legislators want to reveal more of their positions and agendas via linking to non-governmental organizations or news articles, restricting them from doing so is an inane and pointless policy.