This is the District’s current open meetings law:
(a) All meetings (including hearings) of any department, agency, board, or commission of the District government, including meetings of the Council of the District of Columbia, at which official action of any kind is taken shall be open to the public. No resolution, rule, act, regulation, or other official action shall be effective unless taken, made, or enacted at such meeting.
(b) A written transcript or a transcription shall be kept for all such meetings and shall be made available to the public during normal business hours of the District government. Copies of such written transcripts or copies of such transcriptions shall be available, upon request, to the public at reasonable cost.
That’s it. Experts say it is one of the weakest’ if not the weakest’ open government laws in the country. In other states, such as neighboring Maryland, the law is construed so that all meetings of public bodies are open and accessible to the public except under certain exceptions outlined in the law.
Yet in the District, public bodies have been able to meet behind closed doors by saying that no “official action” or vote was taken. Away from public view, important public policy is deliberated and decisions are crystallized just up to the point of a vote. One of the best known examples are the DC Council’s breakfast meetings, which occur prior to legislative sessions. As was said by the Florida courts in the 1974 ruling, Town of Palm Beach vs. Gradison, “Rarely could there be any purpose to a nonpublic, pre-meeting conference except to conduct some part of the decisional process behind closed doors.” Recently reporters have been allowed to attend the breakfast meetings, but the public remains shut out.
On Monday, the DC Council’s Committee on Government Operations and the Environment held a hearing on a proposal to open wide the doors of District government. Bill 18-716, the “Open Government is Good Government Act of 2010,” would make it clear that the open meetings law should apply to the entire deliberative and decision-making process and not merely to the “official” meeting at which voting or an “official action” is carried out.
The Open Government bill is needed to make public policy in our city more transparent and understandable, particularly in how we make our yearly budget. In previous years, the DC Council largely met behind closed doors in the critical days before the official budget vote to deliberate and discuss whether to increase or cut programs, lower or raise taxes, and make other big decisions that set the city’s spending plan for the upcoming year. By the time the Council met in official session to vote, minds were made up and votes were set. District residents and taxpayers had little knowledge of how these decisions that impacted their lives and checkbooks were made and no way to give input before the final vote.
This year, after being asked by DCFPI and other groups to make these deliberations open and subject to public scrutiny, DC Council Chairman Gray televised the hearings. This was a step forward, but under Bill 18-716 there would be no question that these meetings should be treated like any legislative session which the public is allowed to access and witness.
DCFPI and other groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Open Government Coalition, testified Monday in favor of the Open Government bill and made suggestions on how to make the even bill stronger. Now that the bill has had a hearing, we urge Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, the chair of the government operations committee, to move the bill forward toward a full council vote soon.
