The Orlando Sentinel

Orlando Sentinel’s Sunshine Sunday editorial

In the United States, government is the servant — not the master — of the people. In Florida, voters have bolstered this founding principle by amending the state constitution to guarantee public access to government records and meetings.

Yet every year in Tallahassee, state lawmakers try to carve out more exceptions to this constitutional guarantee. So the Orlando Sentinel is again joining other Florida newspapers in marking Sunshine Sunday, an annual reminder for lawmakers and their constituents of the need to protect government in the sunshine.

Florida's constitution permits exceptions to its open-government guarantee, as long as they fulfill a public necessity and are as narrowly tailored as possible. Some, such as narrow exceptions to thwart terrorists or identity thieves, can be justified.

But most proposals from lawmakers to close public records or meetings don't come close to meeting the constitutional conditions. Instead, they are simply favors for officials or agencies that don't want to answer to the taxpaying public, or for special interests that don't want to open themselves to scrutiny when doing business with government.

Lawmakers already have proposed dozens of new exceptions in this year's legislative session. Their contempt for open government is an outrage.

Among the worst proposals is one that would conceal crime-victim photographs, because it would hinder public oversight of law-enforcement agencies. This exception could be abused to cover up police misconduct that results in a suspect's death, for example.

Another ill-advised exception would trust filers of court documents with the power to conceal information in them, shifting that authority from court clerks. Filers might abuse that power to hide information that otherwise would have been available. Interested members of the public would have to go to court to determine whether the information was legitimately hidden.

Some proposed exceptions, rather than pernicious, are merely pointless. But each, if passed, would further erode the public's right of access to government.

News organizations depend on that access to carry out their responsibility of informing citizens about their government.

In the past year, for example, the Sentinel obtained records contradicting claims from the Orange County Sheriff's Office that deputies had not chased a suspect whose speeding pickup killed two motorists. Revelation of the deadly chase led to the most widespread discliplinary action ever in the sheriff's office, the retraining of all 1,4000 deputies and the rewriting of the chase policy.

More recently, the Sentinel used government records to detail Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty's lucrative business deal with a real-estate broker whose projects appear before the county for approval. A special prosecutor is now investigating.

But open government is not just a benefit for a watchdog press. Anyone can review records to learn about crime in his or her neighborhood, the quality of day-care centers and schools, the disciplinary records of doctors and other professionals, and all kinds of additional information that government collects at their expense.

Government in the sunshine helps all citizens hold officials accountable. It discourages waste, fraud and abuse with tax dollars. It invites public participation in policy making, leading to better, more broadly supported decisions. It instills public confidence.

Government in secret, by contrast, breeds mistrust. It leads to policy missteps, as decisions fail to undergo the scrutiny that would reveal flaws ahead of time.

Florida lawmakers who truly believe in their constitution and trust the wisdom of their constituents will stand up this session for open government.

Reproduced courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel.
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