Google plans to announce today that they are partnering with state governments to help make their public records more accessible:

J.L. Needham, who manages Google's public-sector content partnerships, said at least 70 percent of visitors to government Web sites get there by using commercial search engines. But too often, he said, Web searches do not turn up the information people are looking for simply because government computer systems aren't programmed in a way that allows commercial search engines to access their databases.

As more of this content comes online industries such as real estate and insurance will get uglier as commercial players are forced out of the SERP and into buying AdWords. But on the upside, if you gain editorial access to one of these trusted websites it should be quite easy to rank for virtually anything.