Florida Today

Open government policies have seen a boost under Gov. Charlie Crist, but lawmakers continue to push through special exemptions to Sunshine Laws to please special interest and keep citizens in the dark. 

Let the sun shine

Honor Florida’s open government mandate with laws that expand access to information

Today is Sunshine Sunday, the start of Sunshine Week when newspapers nationwide shine a light on the need for open records and open meetings laws that keep elected leaders accountable and help preserve government of, by and for the people.

There’s both promise and peril ahead for government-in-the-sunshine in Florida this year.

Here’s one promise that is proving true:

Last year newly elected Gov. Charlie Crist pledged to champion Florida’s Sunshine Laws, which are enshrined in the state Constitution.

Since then, he has created the Office of Open Government and named a Commission on Open Government to improve compliance with Sunshine Laws.

Those groups have held public hearings around the state and trained state agency workers to improve compliance with open government laws.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Bill McCollum launched a Government Accountability Project to find out which state or local records were the hardest for citizens to obtain, and bring them into the sunshine.

It wasn’t just hot air, with progress including an end to the unnecessary secrecy that surrounds clemency reports.

After public testimony, Crist changed the rules to allow clemency applicants to see their files prior to their hearing date.

The change was prompted in part by testimony from Indian Harbour Beach resident Lynda Markham, who said it made the process more fair.

Positive steps forward

Crist also has released names previously held secret of double-dippers collecting state pensions and full state salaries at the same time.

That has led legislators to draft bills to end future double-dipping abuses of the state retirement system, which covers hundreds of state agencies and many local elected officials, and which taxpayers fund.

More positive steps for open government in the Legislature include:

• A spending disclosure bill calling for creation of a Web site to list contract expenditures of $5,000 or more by state agencies.
  That would allow citizens and watchdog groups to hold government more accountable for waste and to follow money trails when possible ethical lapses taint the bidding process for contract work.
• A bill making the governor’s Office of Open Government permanent, ensuring Floridians continue to have increased access to records no matter who’s living in the governor’s mansion.
• The Voice of the People Act, which lays out a reasonable blueprint for letting citizens often shut out of the governing process voice concerns at public board meetings.

Slamming the door

Despite those very real signs of progress, too many lawmakers still want to operate behind closed doors.

That was evident in Tallahassee last year when Republican legislative leaders shut out the public and often Democratic lawmakers during special sessions when they hashed out controversial quick-fix tax reform schemes.

This year, they continue to push for more public records exemptions, usually at the bidding of special interest.

Some 14 shell bills have been filed for unknown exemption requests that might not be specified until late in the session, perhaps to avoid close scrutiny, according to Adria Harper, director of the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee.

Other troubling bills include:

• An expanded exemption for the Office of Insurance Regulation to shield insurance companies’ “trade secrets” from public scrutiny.
  The last thing Florida needs is for the state to give insurance companies — some of whom may have used loopholes to charge illegally high rates — more leeway to keep homeowners in the dark about their practices.
• An exemption allowing closed door meetings for officials to discuss potential litigation against the state —shutting you out of more back-room high-stakes decisions.
• An exemption that makes all personal information such as names and addresses of individuals largely off limits. Intended to guard against identity theft, the bill is wildly impractical.

It would require state and local governments to spend hundreds of hours redacting documents before release, at huge cost and effectively ending the free flow of information.

Preventing citizens from knowing what their government is doing endangers democracy, like a cancer from within.

Crist has created strong momentum for even greater transparency and accountability at all levels, but that can easily be lost.

We urge lawmakers not to reverse the tide with more dubious open-records restrictions that bring shame on Florida’s proud tradition of government in the sunshine.

ONLINE POLL

Should state spending be made more open to public scrutiny through a Web site listing contract expenditures of $5,000 or more by state agencies? Vote at floridatoday.com/opinion.

Reproduced courtesy of Florida Today.
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