Reactions and Reports
Feb 19th, 2008 by JamieB
We continue with reactions from around the state – and beyond – to the new open records law and the process that got us here. Send us your reaction and/or report.
• From our friends Leslie Graves, who hosts WikiFoIA, the sunshine blog across the nation.
I’m terribly deficient at covering what is now the year-long fight to improve public access to government documents in Pennsylvania, partly because the volume of news stories and blog posts from that one state has been so high.
Due to the doggedness of the state’s media and key grassroots activists, today, Gov. Rendell is signing SB 1.
The best feature of SB1 is that it shifts the burden of proof. Before SB1 becomes law, the burden of proof was on a requestor to establish that the record he wanted was public. Now, the burden of proof will be on a government agency to establish that a requested record is exempt. Otherwise, the assumption will be that it is public and must be provided.
Since we’ve been following the wonderful Pass Open Records, we know that getting to today has been a circuitous route with many obstacles.
Congratulations!
“We set out to replace an old, antiquated law with a law that everybody can work with that reverses the presumption, and we met that goal,” said Pennsylvania Newspaper Association lobbyist Deb Musselman.
Open-records reform is a positive change for Pennsylvania, but honestly folks, something this obvious should not have taken so long.
The era of telling citizens ”NO” is coming to an end. Pennsylvania is finally replacing its justly maligned and antiquated open records law with an updated version.
This will contribute to a slow process of rebuilding public trust in state government. That trust was seriously frayed in recent years, especially with the General Assembly’s attempt to fatten its paychecks surreptitiously one night in the summer of 2005.
Now, it’s up to you to convince the bureaucrat behind the counter, on the telephone or answering the e-mail why the information you want should be made public. Next January, for the first time in modern Pennsylvania history, that will change. Under an overhaul of the state’s Sputnik-era Right-to-Know Law, the information collected by your state and local governments suddenly will be presumed to be public, not secret. Next year it will be up to that person behind the counter, on the phone or responding via e-mail to demonstrate why you can’t have the information you want. What will be available? Everything outside 29 exceptions meant to protect society against harm and individuals against violations of their privacy. The structure of a natural gas utility or a vital computer system remains off limits, as do Social Security numbers, medical records and the answers to standardized tests. Most notably, though, you’ll have first-time access to records of the state Legislature, which until now has exempted itself from such scrutiny, making it hard to get such basic information as payroll.
Congratulations and thank you, state legislators.
Members of the House and Senate by unanimous votes have done what citizens across the commonwealth, and news outlets in particular, have been advocating for a very long time.
They adopted a modern open records law. . . .
The new law takes giant steps beyond its antiquated predecessor, enacted 51 years ago and barely revised since. The most fundamental change it makes is switching the presumption of law so that, rather than forcing people who are seeking government records to prove why they should have them, it assumes at the start that most records are open. Additionally, it broadens the affected agencies to include state-related universities, including Pitt and Penn State, and the Legislature itself, a collective that lately has proved deserving of the most careful scrutiny.
Yet a good law on the books won’t mean anything if it is not effectively used to permit Pennsylvanians to see the important operations of their municipal, county, state and school district offices.
Government is founded on the consent of those governed. This is essential, otherwise you have despotism — or tyranny. And how can anyone give consent without knowledge of what is being consented to?
As we stated previously, this is not a perfect measure. But it does accomplish the much-needed “flip of presumption” — all government records will be considered open unless specifically excepted by the law. That principle would seem to be self-evident in a self-governing society. Not in the Harrisburg oligarchy, however.
And locally, after a disturbing misstep, the State College Area school board has taken a welcome stride toward the light of open government.
Last month, the board — evenly divided, in the wake of Barney Grimes’ resignation, between holdovers and new members demanding “change” — agreed to closed-door meetings during the replacement process and to keeping the names of applicants for the now-open seat private. They didn’t want to “embarrass” anyone by making their names public or turn qualified applicants, apparently allergic to light, away.
Wrong. Wrong. In every way, wrong. Those consenting to be governed, whether by state or school district, have the absolute right — and fundamental need — to know who is being considered to represent them and how the selection is being made. That’s why we have elections, not appointments.
In a positive move this week, the board decided to open to the public heretofore closed citizen advisory committee meetings, and it deserves to be commended for doing so.
The process of government — even the deliberations of volunteer “advisers” — must be open. A closed government, no matter how benevolent, is still a despot.