The News-Press

Crist’s record: open, accountable government

By Jim Ash

news-press.com capital bureau

Originally posted on March 11, 2007

TALLAHASSEE — Only a few months after he was elected attorney general in 2002, Charlie Crist faced a political crisis.

Legislative leaders wanted to ignore part of a constitutional mandate that requires a two-thirds vote to seal public records.

Crist issued an opinion that sided with open government, even though it jeopardized his department’s budget and key bills.

“That’s when I knew he was really, really sincere about the public’s right to open government,’’ said Pat Gleason, a Crist aide and expert on Florida’s “Government in the Sunshine” laws, considered the most far-reaching in the nation.

Less than two months after taking a new office, Gov. Charlie Crist continues to impress First Amendment Advocates — and astonish some journalists — with an open-government crusade he considers crucial to his mandate.

Last week, Crist and his social- services chief, Bob Butterworth, sent attorneys into a Southwest Florida courtroom to side with The News-Press in its demand for the paper trail of a child-abuse investigation.

The law requires a judge’s order to release some documents, and rather than fight the request, the department asked the judge for permission to release the records.

It was a marked change for an agency that traditionally has cited public records exemptions to keep its files — and its sometimes deadly blunders — from public view.

“I was incredibly surprised,” The News-Press Managing Editor Maribel Perez Wadsworth said. “We have gone to court before on these issues, and their position has always been to keep these records confidential.”

The case involved Charalletta and Manuel Hernandez, a Fort Myers couple accused of abusing and neglecting their six children and singling out a 10-year-old girl for systematic abuse.

The children have been removed from the home, and the couple is in Lee County jail awaiting trial.

Neighbors insisted the department botched its investigation.

Butterworth said he’s not willing to admit mistakes in the Hernandez case but pledged the department will no longer be known for shielding records the public has a right to see.

“There are a lot of things by statute that we can’t let go, but the media understands this,” Butterworth said. “The stuff that was being requested was very appropriate.”

Butterworth thinks it’s the first time the department has joined with a newspaper in a public records case.

“I personally don’t know if it’s true, but I was told this was the first time,” Butterworth said. “I can promise you it won’t be the last.”

Crist made the marching orders about open government clear from the moment he took office. In his inaugural address in January, Crist announced he would create an “Office of Open Government.’’

The next day, he signed an executive order making it so.

The change is dramatic, said Adria Harper, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation, a nonprofit group that among other things, tracks the flood of bills lawmakers file every year to close records.

“The previous administration wasn’t very access friendly,’’ Harper said. “I think there is now an awareness that there had to be some changes.’’

When former Gov. Jeb Bush took office, media organizations threatened to sue to get financial and other records from his transition office. A compromise was reached that avoided court.

Other reporters fought Bush for months for a list of schools receiving taxpayer dollars through a school voucher program. Some of the schools turned out to be little more than storefront operations with no students.

Crist’s Office of Open Government is not just window dressing, Harper said.

It already has a Web site and has compiled a list of vital contacts at each state agency responsible for collecting public record requests and releasing documents.

“A lot of times, people were shuffled around because there was no contact person. They didn’t know who the custodian of the public records is or the custodian wasn’t there.”

Two years ago, the foundation awarded then-Attorney General Crist its highest honor, The Pete Weitzel/ Friends of the First Amendment Award. The award is named after the former Miami Herald editor and foundation founder.

JoAnn Carrin, director of the Office of Open Government, said the office has received about a dozen requests for state documents from the public. Crist’s press office handles more voluminous requests from the media.

“People seem actually grateful that there is someone here to guide them when they’re looking for records,” Carrin said. “Our job is to get the records out.”

In his six years in the Senate beginning in 1993, Crist never filed a bill to exempt public records.

As governor, he’ll have those bills land on his desk. The First Amendment Foundation is tracking bills for 100 exemptions to public records laws.

“I would hope that Gov. Crist would have his veto pen ready,” Harper said.

Crist said his attitude hasn’t changed.

“I am deeply passionate about this issue,” he said. “That’s what gives the boss, the people, a window into their government.”

Any bills to close public records, he said, will have to be justified as essential to the state’s security or as absolutely necessary to protect privacy.

“In the post-9/11 era, we have to balance these two very important priorities,” he said. “But I can’t imagine signing any others unless they meet a very high standard.”

Reproduced courtesy of The News-Press.
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