The County Line
-Spring Issue 2004
ACCA Stands Against
New Open Meetings Legislation This Association
has taken a lot of heat recently for its stand on our state's open meetings law.
And most of that heat has not been deserved.
It
started last year when the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case involving
Auburn University's Board of Trustees. The ruling - at least in the view of the
news media - seemed to exclude committee meetings from the state's law requiring
public access to meetings of public bodies.
Even
though there had been some quiet discussion of amending the open meetings law
before this ruling, the ruling caused the news media to put on a "full-court
press" to revamp this most important statute. At the time of this writing,
a bill is pending in the Alabama Legislature that would repeal the existing statute
and replace it with one that is massively-confusing and filled with crisscrossed
definitions that would entrap even the most learned public official.
Our
Association has taken a very strong position against this legislation. At times
the ACCA has been forced to stand alone in committee meetings and in the halls
of the Legislature, while the other groups representing elected officials have
chosen to take a safer, less public position. But our Association has not wilted
from its position.
Right after the bill was
introduced, the newspapers of this state worked to generate momentum for its legislation.
The papers orchestrated what they called, "Sunshine" Sunday, for which
all newspapers in the state were encouraged to write stories outlining supposed
abuses of the open meetings law in their community.
These
stories focused on antidotes about statements made by public officials, supposed
secret meetings and cries that the public's business in Alabama is somehow being
conducted behind a cloak of secrecy and deceit.
It
seems that the newspapers felt that creating a climate of divisiveness and conflict
would be a good tool for moving the legislation forward.
One
of the most interesting things about the content of the articles on "Sunshine"
Sunday, was that the centerpiece of the project was a story about the way a county
commission conducted its business MORE THAN A DECADE AGO! During the public hearing
on the legislation, the spokesperson for the Alabama Press Association, repeated
this story and encouraged the legislators to "do something" about public
officials abusing the state's open meetings law. But his only example was, again,
this one incident way back in the early 1990s.
In
the face of these stories, our Association has staked out a position that was
discussed during its steering committee meetings last year and then approved during
the Legislative Conference. In a nutshell, our position is that the ACCA will
participate in meetings to work on revisions to the existing law requiring open
meetings, but we will strongly oppose the efforts to repeal our existing law and
"start over" with a completely new law.
That
sounds easy enough to understand. And our reasons for this position are simple,
to the point and unmoving: If the existing law is amended, then the court actions
that ensue will focus only on the new language added to the existing law. Since
we have litigated the existing law for 80 years or so, we have a pretty good road
map of the meaning of this law. Litigation - and the cost and divisiveness it
creates - would be kept to a minimum with this approach.
On
the other hand, if this Association agrees to the repeal of the existing law,
Alabama's courts will be filled with lawsuits as we disagree over the meaning
of the detailed definitions in the law and dozens of provisions in the bill that
are so confusing that the press' attorney has had trouble explaining their meaning.
These disagreements will not mean that public officials are trying to do business
"behind closed doors". The litigation will simply be a natural outgrowth
of the replacement of a one-page law with a proposed bill that is more than a
dozen pages in length.
If this new law is
passed, the same newspapers that published the "horror" stories on "Sunshine"
Sunday, will report on the litigation of this new law. They will accuse public
officials of violating the law and the divisiveness of this legislation will be
multiplied several fold.
It is very important
that Alabama have a strong law on open meetings. As a former reporter, no one
needs to sell me on the importance of such a law. But we also must have a law
on open meetings that is fair to the public servants that are asked to follow
it, that is easy to understand and that will not result in finger pointing and
court litigation from now until the cows come home.
Now,
that position may not be the most popular one, but is the best course for our
state. And for that reason, standing alone doesn't seem all that uncomfortable.
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