It’s been a grueling two years. The time has come for a hearty dose of sunshine.
There could be no better time to observe National Sunshine Week, a time for citizens and elected officials alike to recommit themselves to the ideals of open government.
National Sunshine Week is March 13 through 19. The week is a joint effort between the American Society of News Editors, the Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press and the various associations that promote open government across the nation, including the Kansas Press Association, the Kansas Association of Broadcasters and the Kansas Coalition for Open Government (formerly the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government).
Why should Kansans care about this?
Because although public officials often talk a good line on transparency when running for office, when it comes time to walk the walk in Topeka or Washington, D.C., they hide behind a myriad of excuses for why secrecy is preferable.
Here are just a few of the excuses we hear almost every year at the Kansas Statehouse:
• We can’t have frank discussions about the issues when the press is breathing down our necks.
• We can’t record all committee votes because they will be used against us in the next election.
• We can’t have a hearing on every bill filed or we’d be here forever.
• We can’t get the best results legislatively unless we use procedures such as “gut and go” and bill bundling to break logjams.
And the latest:
• We can’t accommodate you because we have limited space and, subsequently, need to ban you from the Senate floor.
DO YOU DETECT a recurring theme here?
“Can’t” seems to be the stock answer to every attempt to open up the political process.
It would be far more productive to discover ways to instead say “yes we can.”
The 450 newspaper and broadcast station members of KPA and KAB try to do their part to make sure public bodies are following the law, but they could use your help. Citizens who take their participatory form of government seriously can provide effective oversight when they attend meetings, seek records or observe their public officials in action.
