ELLENSBURG — Experts started putting government secrecy under the microscope Tuesday, but state lawmakers said they don’t want the new “Sunshine Committee” to start toying with legislators’ ability to keep many of their e-mails secret.
Not yet, anyway.
That’s because the state Supreme Court could soon decide whether the state Constitution includes a “legislative privilege” protecting lawmakers from disclosing certain communications.
The 13-member committee, charged with combing through hundreds of exemptions carved into Washington’s 35-year-old open records law, agreed Tuesday to delay any recommendations about the Legislature’s unique open records exemption.
Committee members also didn’t finish their discussion about a law that keeps applications for public employment secret, even after a candidate is hired by the state.
They did request more information on two exemptions that deal with the secrecy of farmers’ business data and with local health department reviews of infant deaths.
It’s unclear how soon the committee could have recommendations for the Legislature on any of the first four exemptions under review, even as the deadline for its first report nears.
But at least one committee member said he prefers a deliberate pace over a rushed review.
“It’s going very slowly, and I think in a way at this point, that might be a good thing,” said Tim Ford, who serves as open government ombudsman for Attorney General Rob McKenna. “Because if we were to rush on some of these exemptions, it might not be good. But I hope we don’t go too much slower.”
The Legislature’s specific exemption, crafted in the mid-1990s, says that a smaller universe of documents is considered to be public record when it comes to state lawmakers.
As a result, legislators are allowed to keep secret their communications with each other, with staff and with constituents — even though members of smaller lawmaking bodies don’t get the same protection, committee officials said Tuesday.
Democratic and Republican legislative leaders sent a letter to the committee ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, asking that it not scrutinize the legislative exemption until the court case is resolved.
If it does take up the exemption, the leaders asked that the committee only do so when all four of the committee’s legislative members can attend. House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, was the only one of the four present at Tuesday’s meeting. She was not a signer on the letter from the legislative leaders.
But even though they took no action on the topic, committee members and observers gave a hint of the politically charged debate that could lie ahead.
Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, told the committee that legislators should disclose as many records as possible, short of revealing private information that constituents bring to their elected leaders when seeking help with personal matters.
“The kind of things that go on when legislating is done under a blanket is really very damaging to the public trust,” said Nixon, himself a Republican former state legislator.
Kessler urged the committee to wait for the court, and said the debate would also be better when more legislators could take part.
The other lawmakers on the “Sunshine Committee” are Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle; Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn; and Rep. Jay Rodne, R-Snoqualmie.
“I think most of us are pretty much public records people. We’re sunshine people,” Kessler said. “We’re not into keeping things from the public, so I think we need to take part in the discussion.”
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