Speaker-to-be Oceguera makes the liberal case for government transparency
Image from AdamZyglis.com
As a proponent of open and transparent government, the Nevada Policy Research Institute has often said that transparency should have broad, bi-partisan support. Why?
While both sides should embrace transparency, because citizens have a right to know how the government is spending their money, each side of the political spectrum has its own reasons to promote transparency.
For conservatives, it's a way to expose and eliminate wasteful government spending.
For liberals, it's a way to show that government is spending money efficiently and deserves more money.
While conservatives in Nevada have been working on transparency issues for years (albeit not as quickly as citizens deserve), it's great to finally see a liberal Democrat, Nevada's next Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, making the case for putting Nevada's checkbook online. (At the two-minute mark)
Now while Oceguera is making the liberal case for transparency and I don't agree with many of his reasons, his conclusion is correct - Nevada's citizens deserve to have Nevada's checkbook online. The point is that liberals and conservatives can and should support transparency reforms - even if their reasons for supporting it differ.
Given that 13 Republican legislators have already supported putting Nevada's checkbook online, this should be a bipartisan effort.
