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. Another bad idea threatening to become law would shut off access to records of serious mistakes made by pharmacists. Still another measure would eliminate access to the cell-phone numbers, pager numbers and even e-mail addresses that elected officials and law enforcement officers often advertise on their business cards.

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. State lawmakers also are not above exploiting emotional sentiment to mask complex issues. Autopsy photos might have shown whether a restraint system could have prevented stock-car driver Dale Earnhardt's death when he crashed two years ago during the Daytona 500.

In the name of comforting his grieving widow, but acting to protect the track and the stock-car industry, the Legislature retroactively exempted the photos, causing potential problems for prosecutors and medical schools.

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. Last week, after a suspected alcohol-influenced wreck caused by the mayor of neighboring Schaumburg, northwest of Chicago, Hoffman Estates police drove the mayor home, but village officials refused to make public the videotape of their police response, claiming immunity from the Illinois Freedom of Information Act because "it's an unfunded mandate by the state."

Attempts by elected officials to act in secrecy extends to Palm Beach County. The public has paid more than $600,000 in legal and settlement bills over the School Superintendent Art Johnson's transfer of a popular principal, yet the school board continues to stonewall on releasing the 6,000-page investigative report. (The Post has sued to obtain release of the report.)

Only because the spotlight was on the consequences of limiting access to information did the Legislature kill almost all of last year's proposed open-records exemptions. News organizations across the state helped raise awareness through the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors' Sunshine Sunday campaign, which FSNE is repeating today. Citizens focused that spotlight in November. Voters passed a constitutional amendment that requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber for the Legislature to pass new exemptions.

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

If anyone has questions, please contact Deputy Editor of the Editorial Page Jac VerSteeg -- 561-820-4588.