An open-government bill, SB 1598, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday containing many, but not all, of the improvements to the law recommended by Gov. Charlie Crist’s Commission on Open Government Reform.
It remains to be seen if a House companion bill, HB 1211, goes anywhere – it has not yet – or if the House will take up a bill on the floor should SB 1598 sponsored by Republican Sen. Paula Dockery pass the Senate.
The current version of the bill, the Open Government Act, still combines the open-meetings law and the public-records law into one act; makes uniform penalties for intentional violations; and limits some of the fees government may charge citizens for accessing, copying and redacting public records.
For example, the bill would allow an agency to charge for personnel time only if a request to inspect or copy public records requires more than 30 minutes of an employee’s time. It also does not allow for charging the public to redact personal records comingled with public records.
The bill has faced opposition from the Florida League of Cities, which is headed by Tallahassee Mayor John Marks. Provisions in the bill that would have reduced the costs agencies may pass along to citizens were opposed by the League. Marks called that an “unfunded mandate.”
To overcome the League’s objections, some of provisions opposed by the League have been removed.
Rebecca O’Hara, legislative director for the League, said the League is “comfortable with the direction” of the bill.
“The issues that remain are fairly minor,” she said, primarily having to do with the awarding of attorney fees.
O’Hara said she would be more comfortable if the bill allowed judges to use their discretion on whether a plaintiff who successfully sued for violations of the law must awarded fees. She would also like to see agencies allowed to recover their costs in frivolous lawsuits brought against government.
Changes in the bill were made to make it more palatable to the League, although O’Hara said the League did not testify in committee.
In a column last week in the Tallahassee Democrat, Mayor Marks implied that I had erred in my reporting of the facts in a previous blog on the topic, although he gave no examples of factual errors.
The mayor also said he was “a strong advocate for transparency and openness in government, and I have more than proven this commitment to Florida's Sunshine Laws,” although he gave no examples of his advocacy, either.
The current bill is an improvement over what we have now, but I think it falls short of hitting the mark.
As proposed by the governor’s commission, this bill would have given all citizens – the poor as well as the wealthy – an equal ability to have access to government records. Some local governments and agencies have charged outrageous fees that make access to their government’s records a reality only to those who can afford it.
I disagree that this is an "unfunded mandate."
Calling it that is akin to calling the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution an “unfunded mandate.” For those of you who weren’t alive then – or missed that lesson in history – until that amendment was ratified by 38 states in 1964, the poll tax – a fee assessed on citizens wishing to vote – was a way Southern states made it difficult for poor people, primarily blacks, to vote when the Reconstruction era ended.
Don’t think for a second that all governments today welcome openness and access by citizens, although all will say they do. This is not ancient history. Here’s a particularly egregious example, but I could have picked from dozens of other incidents:
A year ago, a Tallahassee Democrat reporter who happens to be African-American, requested a public record from a small county government in the Big Bend area. After being asked numerous questions on her motivation for requesting the document, which by itself is illegal, she was followed to her car where her license plate was written down and run through law enforcement checks, presumably to see if she was wanted for a crime.
These days it is as nearly as popular for politicians to call themselves “advocates for transparency” as it is for businesses to say they are “green.” No one wants to be viewed as being against either.
But you have to do more than simply follow the law to be an advocate for transparency. Some Tallahassee residents, for example, would question just how transparent our city government was when the city commission quietly passed “deferred compensation” increasing pay to commissioners five years ago or when it took away citizens’ right to vote in a special election last year.
I look at it this way: Which would have cost taxpayers more, the city paying a greater share of the cost of open access to government or the last five years of deferred compensation? Tell me, which way would truly be in the best interest of city taxpayers?
If the mayor wants to be seen as an advocate for open government and easy citizen access to government, he needs to get onboard in pushing for Senate and House passage of the latest version of the bill, and he would push the League to do the same.
That's what an advocate for open government would do.
You can send your comments by clicking the button below, e-mailing me at bgabordi@tallahassee.com, sending a private message on Tallahassee.com, Twitter @bgabordi, LinkedIn or Blogger.com. You can also find links to my blogs on Facebook but you have to request to be my friend.
