Weakened webcasting back on the table.

House Joint Memorial 15, link, comes up Thursday in the House Appropriations and Finance Committee. (the link does not include the amendments added in the Rules Committee Meeting)

The HJM is being carried by Rep Jeff Steinborn.

It was castrated in House Rules where an anti-archiving amendment was added that makes webcasting essentially worthless in terms of actually holding someone accountable for what they're doing.

What ever it is that webcasting is supposed to do in the way of transparency and open government is rendered meaningless if there is no searchable archive.

A searchable archive is the whole point. How can anyone be held honestly accountable if there is no archive? It makes accountability a joke.

There was a time when the Republicans were reported to be too afraid of losing webcasting altogether, to push the archiving issue. Since webcasting is a done deal, no longer hostage to a decision on archiving; it would appear, now is the right time to pick a fight over the principle.

For some reason, link, the webcasting with integrity battle appears to be Democrats fighting against Republicans.

What a great opportunity for Republicans;
talk about being on the right side of history.

UPDATE; I didn't realize Steinborn had two pieces of legislation, HR2 and HJM 15, one applies to committee meetings, the other to interim committee meetings. HR2 was the one castrated in House Rules.