Associated Press-Sunshine Sunday Editorial Excerpts

(For release Sunday, March 16, and thereafter)

Editorial Excerpts from Florida newspapers for Sunshine Sunday

By The Associated Press

 

The following are excerpts from newspaper editorials written about efforts in the Florida Legislature to close off access to public records or meetings. Florida newspapers printed editorials on the topic Sunday in an effort called "Sunshine Sunday."

Orlando Sentinel:

Together with beaches, oranges and the Everglades, open government belongs on a list of things to treasure about Florida.

For decades, Florida has been a national leader in ensuring citizens access to their government.

But in the ensuing 10 years, lawmakers made more than 100 exceptions. So last fall, voters weighed in again. By a 3-to-1 margin, they passed an amendment to require that exceptions be approved by two-thirds of the members in both houses of the Legislature, rather than majorities.

Yet many lawmakers still aren't listening. Government in the sunshine remains under siege in the Sunshine State.

With this year's legislative session less than two weeks old, lawmakers already have introduced at least 37 bills that could limit public access to government information.

Most insidious are more than a dozen "shell bills" that would allow exceptions to the constitution without including any details. Such bills are stealth weapons targeting the public's right to know.

Among the worst are bills that would hide reports of serious — even deadly — mistakes made by doctors and pharmacists. Consumers would be deprived of that vital information.

Open government, by contrast, instills confidence among citizens. It invites them to participate. It leads to better decisions, as ideas are questioned, then refined.

Open government also promotes better use of tax dollars. It holds government accountable.

Yet Florida's legacy of open government won't be safe unless citizens demand that lawmakers honor it.

The Palm Beach Post:

In theory, Floridians can review any public record, and elected officials conduct the public's business in public. In reality, the state's tradition of open government is under unprecedented assault.

The Legislature has passed nearly 900 exemptions to the state's open records laws. More than 100 were proposed last year, and 115 were filed in the early days of this year's legislative session. One such proposal reprises last year's effort to keep public utility records secret and thus make it harder for taxpayers to know whether their money and dwindling water resources are being wasted.

Also included are 13 so-called "shell bills," blank slates on which legislators can write open-records exemptions during the session's waning days, allowing little opportunity for review, much less for debate.

The continuing threat to open government from Florida lawmakers sadly follows a national trend. The federal government is exploiting 9/11 to hold even U.S. citizens indefinitely in secret.

With each legislative session, however, the battle begins anew. The public needs the access. It provides the vigilance that ensures a free society.

The Miami Herald:

Florida's Sunshine Law for promoting open government is among the strongest in the nation — and the public must insist that Legislature keep it that way. Why? Because special interests and post-9/11 security concerns are fueling attempts to limit access to official meetings and records. Weakening the law would erode government transparency that protects residents from incompetence, cronyism and corruption — in short, from abuse of power.

There are better ways to ensure good security and oversight without trampling over Florida's tradition of "government in the sunshine." Security and terrorist threats are valid concerns, of course. But the threshold for shutting the public out of government business should be exceptionally high and well defined.

The Legislature should keep that in mind as it considers measures that would weaken our Sunshine Law. Some proposals unjustifiably would hide serious mistakes by pharmacists and physicians. Another bill would deny access to the cell phone numbers, pager numbers, e-mail addresses and billing records for of all law-enforcement officers for self-serving reasons. But, then, who protects the public? By obtaining billing records, the Tampa Tribune recently found that a local sheriff's major cost taxpayers more than $6,000 by phoning his girlfriend and other personal contacts on his department cell phone. That's exactly the kind of oversight that must be protected.

The Tampa Tribune:

In the November election, Florida voters registered their overwhelming support for open government by approving a constitutional amendment that makes it more difficult for legislators to create exemptions to the state's Government-in-the-Sunshine Law.

But even with a constitutional revision that requires a two-thirds vote by each house of the Legislature to make exceptions to the law, nearly 50 bills have been filed for consideration this session that have First Amendment implications. A few represent a true threat to open government.

Ours is a state celebrated nationally for its commitment to open meetings and the protection of public records.

Yet at the end of the first week of the session, Senate President Jim King closed the gallery for a private meeting with Tim Moore, chief of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Moore has already spent $1.5 million on a secret anti-terrorist database, and he wants another $1.6 million to enhance its capabilities.

But while we can understand the Senate's desire to keep information out of the hands of terrorists, it is difficult to understand how a discussion of cost analyses or cost estimates would compromise safety. So we cannot be sure just what the senators heard or said during their meeting with Moore.

Beyond terror-related exclusions and meeting bans, the wish lists of lawmakers and lobbyists who would deny access to information remain plentiful.

Certainly laws requiring open meetings and records sometimes result in uncomfortable situations where candor is tested, but the people of Florida — the very people who empower state and local governments — are more wary of secrecy.

Lawmakers tend to forget that the open records policy is not meant for the media. The demand to be kept informed about the workings of government is the people's policy.

Charlotte Sun-Herald:

Floridians enjoy some of the most liberal open record laws in America, a fact we should be both proud of and thankful for.

Perhaps the best way to appreciate our sunshine laws is to imagine what life would be like without them.

Suppose your county commission or city council were able to meet in private, voting on policy and ordinances without the public being aware?

What if you had no way to verify an accident report for your auto insurance company or no information on the location of sexual predators?

Imagine our reaction if, in a secret meeting, the government decided it would be in the best interest of the nation if we all were fingerprinted and forced to submit to personal interviews to weed out terrorists.

Each year our legislators consider dozens of laws that would restrict the right to obtain information or monitor public and government agencies. Rarely are these laws in the best interests of the public.

We must send a message to lawmakers that we cherish our sunshine laws. Make it a loud message.

St. Petersburg Times:

House Speaker Johnnie Byrd has done little to conceal his contempt for the news organizations that have asked him to account for his unusual spending habits. Byrd, the avowed fiscal conservative, decided to turn legislative public relations into a growth industry this year and initially refused to answer questions about how much tax money he was spending. When reporters demanded financial documents that are public as a matter of law, however, Byrd had no choice.

The result: The public was told that Byrd had increased the communications staff from one to 13 people at a cost of more than $600,000. He then dropped his other plan — dialing 50,000 30-second phone calls an hour to tell Floridians what a good job government is doing.

The Byrd story is a simple illustration of how open government is supposed to work in Florida. Public officials are held accountable by constitutional provisions and laws that require they conduct their business in public.

These principles are well-established in Florida, but they are never safe. Every year, lawmakers want to carve a new exception.

The sun that shines on Florida government offers a view for every citizen, and it is worth savoring. Government is made better by exposure to the people it serves, and each year, as some legislator tries to dim that view, the question must be asked: What are you trying to hide?

South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Once again this year, lawmakers are working overtime to shut the public out, with more than two dozen new public records exemptions bills filed. Fortunately, Florida voters erected a roadblock against anti-sunshine measures. A 2002 state amendment requires two-thirds of lawmakers to vote to pass any new exemptions.

One of the worst new bills (SB 76) comes from Sen. Skip Campbell, D-Tamarac. It would block the public from seeing vital public records about adverse incidents that harm patients because of pharmacists who prescribe improper medicine.

Sunshine Sunday is being sponsored by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, of which the Sun-Sentinel is a member. The message we are sending is simple: Government in the Sunshine offers something for everyone in Florida, and urgently needs to be protected against clouds of official secrecy.

And everyone can use open records to become better-informed citizens, watch how tax dollars are raised and spent, and hold public officials accountable for their performance.

The News-Press of Fort Myers:

Florida has some of the country's best open government laws, but keeping them strong requires tireless vigilance.

This legislative session, certain forces are busy again, trying to shut the door that lets us see what our government is up to.

Last year, the Legislature killed almost all the more than 100 exemptions proposed to the state's widely admired open records and open meetings laws.

Fortunately, the public does care. Voters last year overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds approval in both houses of the Legislature to pass a public records exemption.

Of special concern this year is the raft of so-called "shell bills" filed. These bills simply state the intent to create an exemption to the public records act, but give no details.

Those will be filled in later, perhaps in the hectic late hours of the session, when lots of mischief sneaks onto the statute books.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal:

How do they get away with it?

State lawmakers know how Floridians feel about public-records access and the open-meetings law. Every time open government shows up on a ballot, it receives thundering support.

But every year, the Florida Legislature quietly takes away a little bit of the oversight that voters demand and expect. They close a few more doors. They hide a few more files.

How do they get away with it?

Lawmakers don't think you're paying attention.

There's no other explanation for the whopping cover-ups passed in recent years, and the ones proposed by legislators this year.

They think you can be misled by scary stories of what might happen if the information remains public.

Obviously, there are records that are justifiably private, like health records or personal financial information. But other data is easily obtainable from multiple sources, and there's no reason to hide it.

There are worse abuses waiting in the wings.

Take SB 440. In its entirety, the bill's text reveals only that "It is the intent of the Legislature to create an exemption to public-records requirements." Oh, really? Could the sponsors maybe be a bit more specific?

These tactics are underhanded and unacceptable. Floridians need to speak up, or these legislators will get away with it.

Tallahassee Democrat:

Ignore your health, it's been said, and it will go away. The same is true of our freedoms.

Florida is one of the few states that explicitly assures citizens access to government meetings and public records. It's their constitutional right.

Amid legitimate concerns about security, terrorism and identity theft, efforts to grant new exemptions to Sunshine laws have risen sharply.

Some exemptions, carefully and narrowly crafted, make sense in these uncertain times.

Others, however, cast too wide a net by not being specific enough.

Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, said her organization agrees that many proposed exemptions have merit — in their intentions. But the devil's in the details, and lawmakers often fail to write legislation that stays within the stated purpose of public records and open government laws, she said.

Access is always a balancing act between the public's right to know and public safety. Few would argue that security sometimes trumps Sunshine. But ensuring that state and local governments in Florida remain as open as reasonably possible isn't solely the job of people like Ms. Petersen and media lawyers. It's yours, too.