Editor’s note: As part of the Sunshine Week effort, Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation and a member of the board of directors of the Florida Society of Newspaper editors, conducted this question/answer interview on the topic of open government with Florida attorney general Bill McCollum in Tallahassee in late February.

McCollum: local governments must operate in sunshine

By Barbara Petersen

Q.: Historically, the attorney general has been a strong proponent of the public’s right of access to the records and meetings of open government. Both of your most recent predecessors, attorney generals Butterworth and Crist, were extremely proactive in protecting the public’s interest in an open and accountable government. Have you given any thought to how you and your office might carry on this August tradition?

McCOLLUM: We are going to carry on everything my predecessors had created and do it as well or hopefully better than was done in the past.

Q.: What do you think that you can do to help promote and protect the public’s interest in overseeing government?

McCOLLUM: I talk about it a lot. Whenever the occasion arises, especially with local governments and state agencies, I want to remind them and I will be reminding them of the fact that there is a compliance requirement. I also have some ideas to go along with in the future to further open up some of the things that are not as easily found today, and that may require some legislation down the road. But I believe that those are the kinds of things we can do to advocate a good open government.

Q.: The Office of Open Government will ensure compliance with all executive branch agencies subject to the governor’s control, but that leaves a huge gap, other state and local government entities not under the Office of Open Government. What steps will you take to help ensure compliance at all levels of government so that our next state-wide compliance audit will show a marked improvement over the past few years?

McCOLLUM: First of all, you and I, that is, the First Amendment Foundation and I, have a manual that is published every year. And this manual is going to continue to be published with your assistance, and this is designed largely for local governments. It was distributed there, to cities, to counties, to other local entities. We are not only going to distribute it, we are going to try to continue and set up an education program. It’s right now we are trying to determine, because of the open government office that the governor has opened, how much of that work is done by his office and how much of it is done by ours. But I can assure you we are going to reach out and we are going to literally go over meetings and seminars and communicate with local governments to remind them regularly that is what they need to be looking to. And where they’re not complying, then I think they’re going to need to step up and do it. And we also want to let them know, of course, we are a resource for that, but we want them to be reminded that they’ve got responsibilities just like the state does to hold their meetings in public.

Q.: Florida arguably has the most progressive open government laws in the country. But there is always room for improvement and reform. Would you support an initiative to thoroughly review Florida’s famed open government laws with an eye toward reform?

McCOLLUM: I would and I have some ideas about that. I know that Senator Rhonda Storms, for example, has a bill that hasn’t been introduced that she has been working on. I talked to her about it. I would like to work with her and others on to provide a requirement that all contracts of the state and local governments are put up on a Web site, that they’re posted. That people can actually see and know how to look at their government from the standpoint of what kind of business we are doing. Perhaps, there could be something done with regard to payments that are made, too; checks that are written, things that are open in public. In my own office we have been considering something I think would be important, and that is, for us to post the contracts voluntarily that we make with outside law firms. I think that would be a very good thing for all attorneys generals of the states to do and perhaps we could provide incentives to others to do that, too. There is no reason why people can’t go to my Web site, which they do right now, looking for issues on a child predator and where they can report scams, but they can’t go there and find out how we are conducting our business. There is nothing that should be secret about any of this.

Q.: It’s Sunshine Week, a week designated by the national media to bring attention to the importance of these issues and the public’s ability to oversee its government and hold it accountable. Why is it do you think public officials sometimes have a hard time remembering that government serves the people best when it operates in the sunshine?

McCOLLUM: I think there is always a tendency to want to get a deal done, do something, you know, especially in the legislative arena, but sometimes in other arenas. But in the legislature we think of the state legislature, but you are really talking about local city councils and commissions and authorities like expressway authorities, and they’re always -- there is a fear that if they are discussing this where the media is there, the public is there, that somebody won’t speak as frankly as they would otherwise. Now there is some truth to that. I have been a congressman, I have been a legislator, and we don’t always have the degree of open government in Washington that you have here in Florida. But I think that for the most part people are better served by the open government part of it, particularly the Public Records Act part. I really like that feature. I can understand why somebody might want to run off in a huddle in a corner to say, hey, Joe, will you cut this deal with me? I also understand why we would like to see that open because you don’t want them cutting a deal that is going to involve some special interest. But when it comes to public records, there is absolutely no reason why that shouldn’t be always open.

Back to top | Return to fsne.org