Welcome to my online constituent office. We hope you will find this website to be a useful one-stop portal for any needs you might have from the Virginia state government. We have included information to help you better understand how our government works.
You can also keep up with the policy-making process in the General Assembly during the weeks that I am working in Richmond by reading my blogs and Twitter updates.
As your State Delegate, I’m here to serve you so please contact me with any questions or services you need. I am particularly interested in hearing about ways to make our laws work better for all of us so please do not hesitate to send me policy ideas that I may be able to propose in Richmond. I am honored to represent you and I look forward to meeting you in person.
Thank you,
- DelegateKeam: Presented another Richmond report to civic group: Sully District Council. 35th Dist has only 1 precinct in Sully - called Vale - out of 18.
- DelegateKeam: Witnessing the investiture of new Fairfax Couny Circuit Court Judge Brett Kassabian whom we voted in this session. Congrats, Your Honor!
- DelegateKeam: At NoVA Asian American community town hall hosted by Virginia Asian American Advisory Board. I served on this Governor's board in 2001-09.
- DelegateKeam: Attending "Unlock Gridlock" forum in Tysons hosted by www.TeleworkVA.org and www.TeleworkExchange.com to find solutions for NoVA traffic.
- DelegateKeam: Providing another Richmond report to constituents; this time Providence District Council in Dunn Loring. Most active civic leaders I know.
Posts Tagged ‘accountability’
Delegate Keam quoted in Richmond Times Dispatch
Delegate Keam talks about House Bill 778, the bill he and Del. Jim LeMunyon (R-67th District) tried to push through the General Assembly this year to require all votes be published online under the Member’s name. The House passed the bill overwhelmingly but the Senate killed it in committee.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/SLAW15_20100314-220004/330410/
FOI council helps public with open government act
By Michael Martz
Published: March 15, 2010
It won’t get any easier this year for the public to scrutinize the voting records of General Assembly members, but that’s not because Del. Mark L. Keam, D-Fairfax, and 19 other new legislators didn’t try.
Keam was part of the “Freshman Initiative,” an effort by first-year leg-islators to make the assembly’s Web site easier to use to track votes from subcommittees to the chamber floor. The proposal was carried over a year by a Senate committee, but the new legislators say they are laying down a bipartisan marker to help the public hold elected officials accountable.
“We made a pact that on anything involving transparency, government efficiency or accountability, we will vote together,” he told Maria J.K. Everett during a reception Thursday to kick off Sunshine Week at the General Assembly.
Keam was preaching to the choir. Everett is executive director of the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, a 10-year-old panel that helps people understand, apply and obey state laws that make government records and actions open to the people.
Richmond Sunlight is a great resource
While the LeMunyon-Keam billl failed to be enacted this year that would have allowed the VA General Assembly’s own website to provide members’ voting records online, there is a great resource that already provides this and lots of other useful information. Richmond Sunlight, for example, already provides voting records of all legislators as House Bill 778 would have required.
Here is the link to my own voting record from this session: http://www.richmondsunlight.com/legislator/mlkeam/votes/2010/
If you have some time, please check out Richmond Sunlight and look up what your elected official has done in this session (or in previous sessions if he or she has been in office longer than me!): http://www.richmondsunlight.com/
This photo is from this event hosted by the Virginia Coalition for Open Government: http://www.opengovva.org/component/content/article/25-sunshine-week/1338-sunshine-reception-2010-photos
Transparency, Accountability, Efficiency
Delegate Keam is proud to be the Chief Co-Patron of House Resolution 2, a strong bipartisan measure introduced by Republican Delegate Jim LeMunuyon from the neighboring 67th District, which would require the Clerk of the House of Delegates to make all Committee and Floor votes easily accessible online if a constituent searches under a Delegate’s name.
Currently, the information about who voted which way on any legislation can be found only if a constituent happens to know the bill number or some other obscure information about legislation. The LeMunyon-Keam effort would make it easy for anyone to go online and find this information by looking up their state representative’s name — which is the most obvious piece of information most constituents would have!
Delegate Keam believes that transparency and accountability are the hallmarks of democracy and also that our government needs to be efficient and effective in dealing with its citizens. House Resolution 2 would accomplish all these goals — at least at the House of Delegates.
To keep track of the status of this legislation, check back at http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?101+sum+HR2