Welcome to Sunshine Week!

All this week, state newspapers will be looking at public records and open government here in North Carolina, beginning with interviews with statewide candidates in the Sunday paper.

Here at Under the Dome, we'll also be looking more closely at what we call "online sunshine" — the use of the Internet by state government to make records available.

We've already discussed some principles of online government: Require government to post records online. Think of the user. Put similar information in the same place. Allow direct linking. Give users breadcrumbs. And a whole list of other ideas:

* Broadcasting the legislature on the Web. This idea has been endorsed by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham, the state NAACP and state Sen. Robert Pittenger, among others. Read more here, here, here, here, here and here.

* Requiring local government to post public records online. The Mecklenburg County Board of Elections is considering putting campaign finance reports on the Web. That would help when local officials — such as the mayor of Charlotte — decide to run for statewide office.

* Allowing anyone to search state contracts worth more than $10,000 and state budget information on the Internet. That would help regular citizens, bloggers and journalists alike to uncover overly generous contracts, excessive spending and other problems.

* Post financial disclosure forms submitted by legislators, elected officials and appointees to the N.C. Ethics Commission online. The forms are currently only available to people who have the time and money to get them in Raleigh.

Robert Pittenger wants to Webcast the legislature.

The Republican candidate for lieutenant governor told Dome that he thinks the General Assembly should be broadcast on the Internet.

A state senator since 2002, he argued that would improve transparency and spur the Democratic leadership to open up the floor to votes on issues such as tax policy, immigration and gay marriage.

"Wouldn't it be great if the public could see the iron-fisted manner in which control of the debate is limited?" he said. "I don't think you'd see the same stronghandedness from the Democratic leadership. I think they would have an epiphany."

Pittenger said that he and state Sen. Eddie Goodall have often talked about televising the legislature. Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham and the state NAACP have also called for legislative webcams.

A Virginia nonprofit is also trying the idea.

What would a YouTube legislature look like?

Virginia is about to find out. Using a $2,500 grant from the Sunlight Foundation, the nonprofit Richmond Sunlight Web site will purchase the closed-circuit video of an entire legislative session.

The video will then be converted to QuickTime, posted on the online video-sharing site YouTube on a daily basis and integrated into the nonprofit's Web site. 

Once on YouTube, the videos will be available for embedding on any blog or Web site anywhere with minimal effort—opening the doors to the legislature 24/7 from now until forever.

In recent weeks, both Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham and the state NAACP have called for legislative Webcams. 

The Virginia experiment shows that's a less expensive proposition than you might think.

Earlier this week, 810,000 people watched Barack Obama's response to the State of the Union.

Not in person. Not on television. On YouTube.

Along with that tiresome Obama Girl, the online, on-demand video service has created a new wrinkle in the world of politics: Speeches, when you want them.

C-SPAN televises a lot of political events, but it's not exactly appointment television. While you may see a great speech on the channel, odds are when you tune in they're rebroadcasting the fifth meeting of the subcommittee investigating long-term interest rates.

But YouTube allows time-shifting. Once something is up, you can watch it when you want. Sometimes an older item that has taken on new relevance makes its way into the most-watched. (C-SPAN has some online video, but it's a chore to use.)

With Bill Graham and the NAACP calling for legislative webcams, this points to another principle of online sunshine: Make it available 24/7.

Live-streaming of the legislature isn't enough, since sitting at your computer to watch a 2 p.m. session is just as impractical as seeing it live for most working people.

The Sunlight Foundation has a checklist for online sunshine.

The goals were developed as part of its Open House Project, which aims to make the U.S. House of Representatives more available online. But they would be a good starting point for any such effort.

"These kinds of principles could work at a state legislature as well," said spokeswoman Gabriela Schneider.

The checklist is a little jargon-heavy, so here's a rough translation of a few goals: Do not use proprietary computer formats, broadcast committee meetings, require disclosure reports be filed electronically and create a verification system for archived records.

While Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham and the head of the state NAACP have called for legislative webcams, the Sunlight Foundation also calls for the video to be archived as well.

Currently, the state legislature offers streaming audio, but it does not provide archives. (Savvier computer users can use programs like Audio Hijack to record proceedings, however.)

Rev. William Barber II called for legislative committees to be televised.

The head of the state's NAACP said that too much of his group's agenda died in committee meetings that were not readily available to the public.

"We need to know what's happening in the committee meetings," he said. "If they can do it for the federal government on C-SPAN, we ought to be doing it in North Carolina. Bottom line: Open up this government."

The call comes two weeks after Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham called for webcams to broadcast the legislature online.

North Carolina already provides live audio for sessions in both houses, press conferences and all meetings in the Appropriations and Finance Committee rooms, but no video footage is available.

Barber said that he would also like to see streaming audio of all of the committees.

Democratic pollster Tom Jensen says legislative webcams are a good idea.

In a post on the Public Policy Polling blog, he writes that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham's proposal of live streaming video of the legislature and conference rooms "just makes sense."

I'm sure I was the dorkiest kid on the block but I always enjoyed watching the Michigan Legislature growing up, which had a whole tv channel devoted to broadcasting its doings. There's really no downside to it that I can see.

He adds that the legislature ought to "just make this happen."