How I Defeated Terminus
From The Sunlight Foundation
Here today to share his one-man experience in opening up the City of Atlanta, is our Sunlight Foundation guest blogger Matthew Cardinale. Matthew is the News Editor and Founder of the Atlanta Progressive News and a North American Correspondent for the Inter-Press Service.
Atlanta has had three names in its history: Marthasville, Terminus, and Atlanta.
I never intended to take on Terminus. Actually, at the time I was
trying to build relationships with newly elected Council Members and to
strengthen relationships with incumbent Members. So much for that!
All I wanted to know was how everyone voted!
So, at that point I had already threatened to file a lawsuit.
Unfortunately, I was not successful in finding an attorney willing to
take on my case on contingency. So, I had to sue without one. Of
course, if you threaten to sue and don’t do it, then your threat has no
value in the future. So I had to sue pro se.
The City filed a Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
I filed a reply to their Motion to Dismiss.
So in October 2010, I appealed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia. An
attorney who was giving me advice up until that point warned me not to
appeal, said I would set bad case law, said that my chances of
prevailing were slim, and asked whether I wanted to spend two to three
years on this.
Unfortunately, the Court of Appeals ruled against me in February
2011. This time, even the Georgia First Amendment Foundation advised me
against wasting my time on appealing.
But I filed a Petition for Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Georgia
in March 2011, which they granted--a rare accomplishment in itself-- in
July 2011. I made oral arguments before the Supreme Court in October
2011, which are available online hereI filed a Supplemental Brief in November 2011. Then, in February 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in my favor, that the names of those voting against or abstaining do have to be listed in the case of a non-roll call vote
Click Here-->Read The Full Story
Does this sound familiar-trying to find out what your Gov. at any level is doing, is like a child throwing a tantrum, and stalling, and dragging them fighting , to the woodshed before some kind of compliance?
It serves always to distract the public councils and feeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves with in their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.
If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."
…George Washington’s Farewell Address…
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