Report details loophole debates

The "sunshine committee" that is studying how to tighten loopholes in state government's records-disclosure laws avoided any tough recommendations in its first report to the Legislature.

The committee was created to examine more than 300 exemptions that have crept into records law since voters approved Initiative 276's sweeping disclosure requirements in 1972. Fierce opposition surfaced in recent hearings when records-exemptions for agriculture and other interests were discussed.

"I think what we've learned as a body is there is no such thing as a noncontroversial exemption," said Tim Ford, vice chairman of the committee, which is supposed to find exemptions that might need to be removed or amended. "We're actually deliberating. I'm not disappointed. We're still debating. It's not shot down."

Ford also is the records-disclosure advocate in the office of Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican who pushed for and won passage of the sunshine committee legislation this year in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

The committee's chairman, Seattle city attorney Thomas Carr, gave a similar assessment after sending the group's preliminary report to lawmakers Thursday. That report says members still are deliberating what to do on three exemptions the committee studied — including one for certain financial data of ginseng dealers, worker applications for public employment and information used for infant-mortality reviews.

The committee also agreed to a legislative request to hold off on looking at the disclosure of legislative records until a pending Supreme Court ruling decides whether lawmakers have a special privilege.

The records-review committee came into existence in the summer. Its 13 members include newspaper publishers, legislators and attorneys.

Government watchdog Toby Nixon, a former Republican legislator who is president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, said Friday he is not disappointed in the group's work.

"I believe they will find that a majority of the exemptions are valid."

Carr predicted that as the committee continues its work over the next few years, it might not repeal exemptions, but it can better define the information that is supposed to be concealed or released.

Farm lobby

Among those defending the ginseng and general agricultural business exemptions were representatives of the Washington Farm Bureau and lobbyist Jim Jesernig.

"Without the agriculture exemptions, the industry can't exist," Jesernig said outside the committee's hearing this month.

Inside the hearing room, Jesernig told the committee that agriculture is a $6 billion industry in Washington with more than 100,000 employees, and it needs to protect data about its activities from foreign competitors, who pay lower wages and use growers' data "against us any time and place that they can."