In
this Edition
Reality Check
914
-
Days since the Pay Raise of 2005. See the
ticker .
1 - Law enacted to improve government integrity. See the
cartoon .
0 - "Best-in-America" laws enacted. See the
campaign .
See the full January
edition of "Reality Check" on the web.
Happy
New Year! $100,000 Challenge Extended
DR
contributors closed 2007 by raising more than $33,000 toward matching the
$100,000 pledged for our capital campaign, whose deadline has been extended
to January 31. Check our home
page to check our progress and watch the heat rise on the culture of
corruption in
"Where
do you think you are,
Here's
some plain talk about open records from the
"The
people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to
decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to
know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control
over the instruments they have created."
--
Section 552.001 of the Government Code of
Meanwhile
in PA, Gaping Holes In SB 1
Citizens
can thank the state Senate for refusing to rush to judgment on the House-passed
version of open records legislation, which will be the foremost order of
business when both the House and Senate return on January 14. While the House
made si gnificant improvements to the original Senate
Bill 1 , there remain a few gaping loopholes that make the law less
open and more secret than it should be. Now is a good time for citizens to ask
their Senators to close those loopholes.
Enforcement. There are two concerns: 1) the penalties for violating
the law, and 2) the costs when citizens must go to court to obtain public
records.
The best
open records laws create both civil and criminal penalties for agencies and
officials who intentionally violate the law. They also have tougher penalties
for repeat offenders. But SB 1 has only a civil penalty of $1,000 no matter how
often or unreasonably an agency or official misbehaves.
When
citizens must go to court, the expenses can be high. The best and most
citizen-friendly law would require courts to award attorney fees and court
costs, either when agencies stonewall citizens or when citizens make frivolous
requests. Yet SB 1 makes such awards optional, even when an agency
repeatedly vio lates the law willfully, wantonly or unreasonably.
Questions:
Lobbyist and constituent communications. The best laws
recognize that citizens have the right to know who is trying to influence their
lawmakers and with what information and inducements. Citizens deserve to know
the nature of the debate and how to argue for their own interests with those
who represent them.
SB 1 keeps
the records secret - not just names but entire records - of anyone who "requests
assistance or constituent s ervices from a member of the General
Assembly." That's not good enough.
Privileges. The law has long recognized a number of relationships
where communication is privileged. These include priest-penitent,
doctor-patient and husband-wife. SB 1 keeps these privileges and adds a new
category: "other privilege recognized by a court interpreting the laws of
this Commonwealth."
Call us
skeptics, but we can imagine that the General Assembly already has drafted a
lawsuit asking the courts to recognize "lawmaker-constituent"
communication as a privilege. Given the already too-cozy relationship between
the legislature and the courts, SB 1 should prevent such a possibility by
listing the privileged relationships and prohibiting all others.
Pay to
Play.
This new section, Section 905, allows agencies to refuse to provide documents
if the requester hasn't paid the fee for a previous request. News organizations
point out that this gives agencie s and officials an incentive and an opportunity
to stonewall a single controversial request and thereby deny indefinitely any
number of other non-controversial requests.
This is just
another reason why public information should be provided to the public and
media free of charge. CLICK
HERE for other reasons (in bold) in a statement from last September.
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