State lawmakers do not deserve special treatment under the law

By Jason Mercier | For The Olympian • Published March 16, 2009

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As lawmakers pass the halfway point of the 2009 session and begin passing important legislation, do you really know what they are doing on your behalf?

Sure you can watch the floor debates and public portions of legislative hearings. If you pay close attention, you might even be able to read the text of an amended bill before it is voted on. But is this level of transparency sufficient to hold our elected officials accountable, or should we have the same access to the activities of state legislators as we do local elected officials in our state?

This important question received added relevance last week as a scandal erupted in the Legislature. Just as lawmakers were preparing to vote on a highly controversial union bill, the governor, speaker of House, and Senate majority leader announced the bill was dead and would no longer be considered.

The reason for this dramatic decision? E-mails were being sent to legislators "linking potential action on the bill to campaign contributions." This sounds an awful lot like bribery; offering a legislator money to advance a private interest, in this case a labor union.

While the action by state leaders to kill this bill is to be commended, we only know about this egregious violation because lawmakers decided to tell the public. Under the state public records law, legislative communications such as e-mails are exempt from disclosure.

Closer to our wallets than this brewing e-mail scandal are legislators' actions concerning the state's multibillion dollar budget deficit and potential tax increases.

For months, state newspaper reporters have been trying to learn lawmakers' plans concerning the budget and tax increases. The feet-dragging of the Legislature to release this information led some of these reporters to write articles and blog posts about the trouble they were having accessing this vital information to help inform the public about the options.

Only after this heightened media scrutiny were some of the details recently released.

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