Pensacola News Journal

Today, the News Journal is joining 35 newspapers across the state in the second annual Sunshine Sunday, an effort to keep the public informed about its right to know what government is doing in its name — and the continuing efforts by politicians to limit that right.

It requires constant vigilance.

Florida first enshrined the concept of open government into state law in 1909 with Chapter 119, the Public Records Law that gave citizens broad access to state records. The Legislature has been looking for ways to limit it ever since.

But until recent times, the trend has always been in the other direction — toward requiring governments to be more open to the people it represents, and who pay its bills. In fact, the people of Florida still opting for more open government. It is lawmakers who keep trying to thwart their will.

Thirty years ago, Chapter 286 was created — Florida's famous Sunshine Law.

It makes most meetings of boards, commissions and other bodies of state and local governments open to the public.

In 1990, voters overwhelmingly answered the question of whether the Sunshine Law's requirement for open meetings should apply to the Legislature by voting ÒyesÓ on a constitutional amendment. Two years later, they approved another amendment establishing the public right of access to information from the legislative, executive and judicial branches of state government.

And last November, voters approved — by a vote of 3-to-1 — an amendment making it more difficult for legislators to pass new exemptions. It requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature to put new restrictions on government in the sunshine.

But legislators and state bureaucrats would rather not face such scrutiny — it's a lot easier to get things done when you can do it behind closed doors. More than 200 exemptions to the Sunshine Law have been passed, and more are proposed every year.

By late last week, the First Amendment Foundation, the state's preeminent Sunshine Law watchdog, had sniffed out more than 30 bills in this session of the Legislature that could add new limits to your right to open government.

Some of these exemptions might be needed — in relation to security against terrorism, for example — but most of them unnecessarily limit the public's right to know what is being done in its name, or what might be done to it. For instance, one exemption proposed this year would limit the public's right to know about Òadverse incidentsÓ — mistakes made by doctors or pharmacists that inflict serious damage on patients.

To see a full and updated list of exemptions being proposed this year, go to www.floridafaf.org, the Web site of the First Amendment Foundation, an open-government watchdog in Tallahassee.

Many people are under the mistaken assumption that the Public Records Law and the Sunshine Law are only for the use of journalists. Not so. They give any citizen of Florida the right to attend meetings and see governmental records.

Open government is a precious right — help keep it strong.