Morning News Tribune Gets It...Open Government Is Needed

As a member of the "Sunshine Committee" I have stressed the need, indeed, the mandate by the people to open the doors of government. There can be no accountability without it. Kim...point your efforts right at CPS.

Sunshine Committee still waiting to be heard
Posted By Kim Bradford
Tacoma News Tribune, December 17th

The Sunshine Committee could be on its way out. Perhaps lawmakers would consider a parting gift of finally heeding the committee’s advice?

The Sunshine Committee, aka the Public Records Exemptions Accountability Committee, was among the 95 boards and commissions Gov. Chris Gregoire targeted for elimination earlier this month.

This isn’t the committee’s first death threat, nor would it be the last should the committee survive the legislative session. Some lawmakers complain that the committee hasn’t done enough to justify its existence.

But the Sunshine Committee is only as worthless as the Legislature makes it.

Some of the same legislators who would do away with the committee also refuse to sign onto bills that would see its recommendations given the force of law. {Right On Kim!)Worse yet is the lawmaker who sits on the committee yet in at least one instance worked to thwart its legislative agenda.

Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, sponsored a bill earlier this year that purported to implement the Sunshine Committee’s nonunanimous recommendations. Upon closer inspection, open government advocates found that what it actually proposed to do was take a bad court ruling and make it state law.

That ruling introduced an attorney-client privilege into the open records act, making a slew of records exempt from public disclosure even when there is no controversy. The Sunshine Committee voted 7-3 last year to ask the Legislature to clarify the law and preserve public disclosure; that recommendation still awaits the Legislature’s approval.

So does the committee’s more recent recommendation to get rid of the so-called “legislative privilege” that lawmakers use to get around open records requirements.

This privilege has been cobbled together from a sloppy definition of “legislative records” and an untested 2006 Snohomish County court case. Lawmakers, as well as the public agencies that communicate with them, use it to avoid disclosure of e-mails, letters and memos written on state equipment by state employees.

Earlier this year, the Department of Revenue balked at giving up records relating to tax proposals it had analyzed for lawmakers. The reason? Legislative privilege. Lawmakers eventually relented, but maintained that they did so only out of the goodness of their hearts.

The Sunshine Committee, which includes attorneys who advise local governments, takes a dim view of state lawmakers getting special treatment.

“Every other legislative body in the state of Washington is fully subject to the public records act,” the committee wrote in its recommendation. “There is no principled reason why the state Legislature should be exempt.”

That message remains true whether the messenger lives or dies.