Instead of continuing to argue in favor of secrecy, legislators should act for the benefit of their employers — the people of Washington.
Last week, a judge in Thurston County ruled that lawmakers’ emails, texts, schedules, and other items are a matter of public record. That was the decision from Superior Court Judge Chris Lanese in a case brought by the Associated Press and other media outlets seeking public disclosure of the items.
The suit was filed in September, but the issue has bubbled for years. In 1972, voters passed the state’s Public Records Act, mandating that official records should be made available to the public upon request. Lawmakers have insisted that a 1995 revision to the law exempts them from following certain aspects of that law — even though governments at the city and county levels are still subject to it.
The effect has been to prevent the public from knowing who might be influencing their elected officials. In the process, lawmakers reinforce the notion that government is not truly representing the people. They reinforce the idea that special interests and closed-door dealings can unduly sway the legislative process — often at the expense of taxpayers.
Consider three possible scenarios in which the public is poorly served by obfuscation on the part of lawmakers. Let’s say that a legislator was meeting with Boeing officials while considering a tax break for the company; or exchanging emails with representatives of the teachers’ union while reconfiguring school funding; or having lunch with environmental groups while devising legislation related to water rights.
Such contact likely is part of a lawmaker’s effort to be informed on the issues rather than something nefarious. But in demanding secrecy, legislators generate mistrust and suspicion from the public. Awareness of what elected officials are doing on the public’s time and the public’s dime is essential to a free and open democracy.
In spite of that, lawmakers continue to fight in favor of keeping the public in the dark. In rendering his decision, Lanese said, “none of the arguments advanced by the defendants here can escape the fact that the plain and unambiguous language of the statute literally has a definitional chain that goes from agencies to state agencies to state offices to state legislative offices.” In other words, legislators have no foundation for keeping work-related schedules, emails, and texts from the public. Noreen Gillespie of the Associated Press said, “Today’s ruling is a victory for the public — allowing the people to know what their elected officials are doing behind closed doors.”
Indeed. And it is time for lawmakers to end a specious fight and hold themselves to the same standards as other government officials. Rep. Gerry Pollet, D-Seattle, has introduced a bill to amend the Public Records Act and end any ambiguity, saying, “Washingtonians deserve to know who influences their legislators and who their elected representatives meet with about the public’s business.”
Rather than appealing Lanese’s ruling, lawmakers would be wise to embrace openness and support legislation that boosts transparency. As Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, has said, “How can we as citizens know that our elected officials are making good decisions if we don’t have access to the same information they are using to make those decisions?”
When pondering that question, lawmakers should remember that they work for the people.
