Jason Tolbert Transparency Act Update
Rep. Steve Harrelson’s historic HB 1611, better known as the Jason Tolbert Transparency Act of 2009 (JTTA) may come before the House Rules Committee on Wednesday afternoon. If passed, JTTA would open up the house committee meetings to broadcast on the internet. Right now the chairman of each committee has the desecration whether to allow this or not. However currently, the only committee footage you will find is whatever I am able to shoot with my flip cam (the offical camera of the Tolbert Report.)
Harrelson also filed a companion appropriation bill, HB1783, yesterday just before the deadline that would provide funding of up to $250,000 for the live streaming of the committee hearings. The funding bill will go before the Joint Budget Committee. As Harrelson has pointed out, both bills are necessary for us to actually see the project go online by next year’s session.
KTHV Channel 11 filed the report in the video above on JTTA (although failed to address the measure by itself formal name.)