Are you interested in joining an online exchange about legislative efforts to update Minnesota's laws and information services for the information age?  Minnesota politics are more online per capita than perhaps anywhere else in the world.  How do we take our democracy the next step? Should our state and local government's have official e-democracy policies and programs like some countries?  Join our E-Democracy Legislative Study Group as we explore our state's options.

Join our study group, by entering your e-mail here:

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• Should our Open Meeting laws be changed to required online notice of all public meetings?  Should all handouts be made available online?
• Should public meetings be digitally audio/video recorded and made available on the Internet?
• Should the legislature require all submitted reports to be placed on the Internet?
• Should there be a Democracy Manual, that would replace the print-oriented Legislative Manual, built on a public domain database of all elective and appointive officials in Minnesota?
• Should there be a uniform online Rulemaking Information Service like the legislature has for lawmaking?
• What investments are required to develop next generation official government "e-democracy" services by the legislature, Constitutional offices, and local decision-making bodies?
• With detailed Governor's budget proposals going online for the first time, should spending and detailed office budgets and public salary information on top government official be placed on the Internet?
• What laws do you feel need updating?  What online services do you feel are a fundamental obligation of government to provide in a democracy?
• What other "E-Democracy To Do's" should be explored?

Statutes to Review

To prepare for our informal discussion, please review the following statutes for possible "internet-enabling":
 

1. 13.D Open Meeting Law (All government units)
2. 3.055 Open meetings (Legislature)
3. 3.195 Reports to the legislature
4. 5.08 Legislative manual
5. 15.0597 Appointments to multimember agencies
6. 15.0599 Registration of mulitmember agencies
7. Nominate other specific statutes for review via e-mail to the study group.