Glossary
Here are some definitions for terms used on our site.
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- Available Categories
- Capsule
- Capsule Page
- CAP Sunshine Index
- Constitution
- Feedback Page
- Most Recent Law
- Most Recent Statement of Law
- No Mention
- Not Yet Available
- One Category Across All States
- One State Across Available Categories
- Project Page
- Search Page
- Statute
- Sunshine Review Board
The categories that we currently have information for. We are attempting to catalog a very large amount of information so all categories will not be available immediately.
CAP's user friendly restatement of the law affecting the particularly provision named. This capsule has been prepared about reading a state's constitutions, statutes, and appellate case law. If not all of the law has yet been read, that should be indicated. The capsule provides the citations for further checking or for finding the legal document itself through our links to the law on our Resource page. The capsule also should indicate to you which portion of the law is being rated in the column "most recent statement of law" on our one-state, "all" categories page and on our all-state, one category page.
Contains the capsule (see above), a map of closely related categories that you can visit, and, sometimes, summaries of related cases that you can review.
The scale we use for ratings. The scale, explanations of the scale, and Interpretative icons are available on all database pages. We define the scale by matching the sunlight available against the degree to which state government is open or closed, as determined by the Sunshine Review Board.
The appropriate state constitution. We summarize it and the Sunshine Advisory Board rates it with the use of our CAP Sunshine Index.
Please write us about problems you have with the page, information that you have for us about the laws, or with information that will help us to be more accurate. Contact information for key CAP staff members is on this page.
Using the "most recent law" on the all-states, one category page, you will see the rating for the most recent case opinion, statute, or constitutional provision addressing the category. Because of the mathematical weighting we are doing for cases, statutes, and constitutional, we cannot provide a rating for a state's reliance on a combination of a mixture of cases and a statutory provision, for example, for its law. Our substitute is provide you with a rating of the most recent authoritative statement that specifically addresses that category of law. We weight statutes, court cases, and constitutional provisions, so that our ratings reflect the varying importance of different documents and institutions in our legal system. The weighting system we use will soon be available.
In determining the most recent statement of law for one records or meetings category, we first look for the legal language that best addresses the category. Then we look for any statute, constitutional provision, or state supreme court case law on the topic. We do not look at lower courts for this rating because anything lower than the highest court of the state would not represent the state as a whole. The rating represents the most recent statement of law in the statutes, in the constitution, or in the supreme court case law that best characterizes the particularly category. We use the rating rather than trying to rate the overall law because 1) there are often so many components to the overall law including timing, different legal authorities, and court "modifications" of statute that it is too complicated to ask the review board members rate-they are unlikely to be basing their rating on the same thing, and 2) for the purposes of our rating system, we cannot mix the ratings of a statute and a case. We weight for the level of legal authority and therefore cannot mix ratings of different legal authorities. We would not know how to evaluate the results. See methodology for additional information.
This means that there is no law under a specific legal authority (statutes, case law, or constitutional law) for one category.
This usually means that the category's rating under a specific legal authority (statutes, case law, or constitutional law) has not yet been calculated. This is likely to be true particularly if there is a capsule for the category but not a rating score. The "not yet available" in a column will frequently signal there will be a rating for the category under another kind of legal authority. The "not yet available" is also used when the law has been changed and we have not yet had a chance to re-research or re-rate the law.
One Category Across All States
Ratings for a single category across all fifty states.
One State Across Available Categories
The ratings for one state across all of the categories that we have information for.
Background for the project-the history of the project, the project research methods, the staff, and the members of the Sunshine Review Board.
Other than the Home Page, the key to the project. Through the search page you can move through our interactive database of state laws at your own pace, looking up your own interests. If you point your curser to one of the statements under item #1 the appropriate directions in item #2 will pop up. Be sure to push the "Go" button before you leave the page. This is one of three pages showing the CAP Sunshine Index.
The appropriate state statute. We summarize it and the Sunshine Advisory Board rates it with the use of our CAP Sunshine Index.
Professor Chamberlin, as director of the project, established the Sunshine Advisory Board to rate the state's access laws. Advisory Board members were chosen for their familiarity with access law, their commitment to open government, their individual credibility and visibility, and their willingness to work on the project. The advisory board members also represent different regions of the country and different professions and constituencies interested in access.
Once Professor Chamberlin and the MBCAP staff have prepared legal summaries of state laws, those summaries are sent to the Sunshine Advisory Board (SAB) for review. Every state access provision is sent to the board, one category at a time. When states use duplicate language, only one statement represents one or more states. However, the advisory board members are not told which state laws they are reviewing or, in fact, whether the statement of law they are reviewing is from a statute, constitutional provision, or court decision. The "blind review," which clearly cannot conceal all connections to specific laws from people who know the law well, is meant to limit the influence that advisory board members might inadvertently give to a specific state's law or a specific kind of legal authority.
The advisory board members rate each state law provision on a scale of 7 to 1, with a "seven" representing a state law that maximizes access to government information and a "one" representing a state law that most minimizes access. When the MBCAP staff receives the ratings from each SAB member, the ratings for each category for each state from each advisory board member are averaged. No member's votes are excluded. The precise average can be seen on the "One category across all states" pages and by putting the curser on the weather icon beside each category on the "One state across available categories" pages.
We only post the ratings when we receive votes from 8 of the 10, or 9 of the 11, active SAB members, depending how many members of the board we have at the time a vote is taken.
If a regular member of the board cannot vote, one of the "associate members" of the board are sent the statements of law being reviewed at that time. The associate board member selected will match the credentials of the regular board member as closely as possible. In other words, we try to substitute a media lawyer for a media lawyer and a media representative with a media representative.