According to InformationWeek, Microsoft has managed to get two Massachusetts Democrats (William Galvin, the current Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, and state senator Marc Pacheco) to oppose the OpenDocument standard politically. The standard, now ratified, is scheduled to go into effect starting January 2007, but there is now a hearing scheduled for October 31, and Andy Updegrove, legal counsel to OASIS, apparently received a call from a reporter who claimed that Galvin "would not approve" the standard, despite the fact that he doesn't appear to have that authority. I was unable to find a list of donors for either William Galvin or Marc Pacheco on Open Secrets (though it's a separate open secret that William Galvin has his eye on the governor's seat in the 2006 election). If anyone can find out how much money is flowing from Microsoft to Galvin or Pacheco I would very much like to know.

Related entries:

• 2005.09.25: Massachusetts goes OpenDocument