More public disclosure is good for state
Thursday, March 27, 2008 6:23 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleWashington's Public Records Exemption Accountability Committee, better known as the Sunshine Committee, issued its first two recommendations to the state Legislature on Tuesday. Committee members called for the applications of finalists for top management jobs in state, county and local governments to be made public and for greater public disclosure in state investigations of child deaths.
It's a strong start for the panel, which was created last year to recommend improvements in the state's open government laws. The committee's recommendation regarding applicants for top government jobs is a long sought improvement. The Washington Legislature voted in 1987 to require public release of the names and background of applicants before the hiring decision, according to Associated Press writer Curt Woodward. The measure was vetoed by then-Gov. Booth Gardner, who feared that public disclosure would scare away qualified applicants.
That concern was repeated by one Sunshine Committee member, Woodward reported. Another may share it; the vote to require public disclosure of more applicant information was 5-2. We believe the majority got it right. Many public entities regularly make public detailed information about finalists for top positions without apparent harm. School boards, for example, interview applicants for superintendent in public. Good applicants don't shy away from public scrutiny.
The panel now begins its main body of work - reviewing exemptions to the state's 1972 Public Records Act and recommending which ones ought to be eliminated. The records act is long overdue for this sort of house cleaning. This public disclosure law had just 10 exemptions when Washington voters enacted it via initiative 36 years ago. It now has some 300 more exemptions. Some of them, such as one exempting records on the sale of ginseng, make no sense. Many of these exemptions were slipped into the law with little or no legislative debate. Once there, they stayed. Until last year, there was no process for reviewing an exemption to the public records law.
Washington's Public Records Act needs to be as straightforward and uncomplicated as possible. Government officials should know the law and their obligations in order to act quickly and correctly on requests for public records. The great number of exemptions this law has accumulated over the past 36 years often create confusion and frustrate the people's right to know what their government is doing in their name. As state Attorney General Rob McKenna noted when recommending the creation of this Sunshine Committee, "The whole purpose of open government is defeated if there are too many exemptions to the Public Records Act."
We're optimistic the Sunshine Committee will strengthen the public records act significantly in coming months.
What if it were you wrote on Mar 27, 2008 10:33 AM:
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