Open-government bill author calls GOP part of 'secrecy lobby'
By The Associated Press
08.22.02
SACRAMENTO — The Senate's Democratic leader accused Assembly Republicans on Aug. 20 of joining the "secrecy lobby" by blocking a constitutional amendment that would bolster public access to government meetings and records.
"I thought the Republican mantra was supposed to be 'less government,' not 'less open government,'" Senate President Pro Tem John Burton said after the GOP refused to approve deadline waivers that would allow the amendment to be acted on by the Assembly this year.
Peter DeMarco, a spokesman for Assembly Minority Leader Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, said there was no need to consider the amendment now because the deadline for measures to make the November ballot had passed and it wouldn't be considered by voters until 2004.
"We share the senator's ideal to have a full vetting of this proposal," DeMarco said. "However, given the fact that it cannot qualify for this November's ballot, we felt this deserved more scrutiny and more time and the full attention of the Legislature."
Lawmakers are scheduled to wrap up their 2002 session by Aug. 31, although a lingering state budget deadlock could keep them in town longer than that. Constitutional amendments, like budget bills, could be taken up after Aug. 31.
Democrats have majorities in both houses of the Legislature but they lack the two-thirds majorities needed to waive deadlines for hearings.
The open-government amendment, authored by Burton, D-San Francisco, would put into the state constitution the stipulation that the public has a fundamental right to attend government meetings and inspect government records, with some exceptions.
California has a series of open-government laws already on the books, but supporters of the amendment say those statutes have been eroded over the years by court decisions and efforts by government officials to block access to records.
Putting an open-records, open-meetings requirement in the constitution will strengthen those protections, they say.
The amendment was approved by the Senate in June without opposition.
Terry Francke, general counsel for the First Amendment Coalition, one of the amendment's chief supporters, said the Assembly's failure to approve the amendment this year could force its supporters to repeat a process of "re-education, re-persuasion and renegotiation" in 2003.
"If it simply was a process of picking up the bill we have now with the consensus that was achieved in the Senate, that would be one thing," he said. "But I'm not sure we won't have to go back and start from a place where it may be more difficult to regain momentum."
The amendment's other chief supporter is the California Newspaper Publishers Association.