Editorial: Let sun shine on our government
Every week of the year has been designated by somebody as National Something Week, designed to bring public attention to issues and causes.
Such a din of commemoration makes it likely for some of the more serious issues to get lost in the shuffle. So we devote this space today to calling attention to an issue being highlighted this week that's about nothing less than freedom. Everyone's freedom. The freedom to know, which, in a free society, must precede the freedom to act.
This is National Sunshine Week, based on the metaphor for what is needed to be cast upon the actions of government so they are clearly known to all. According to http://www.sunshineweek.org/, its roots are in 2002, when the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors created "Sunshine Sunday."
Simultaneous editorials in that state's major newspapers on that day called attention to efforts in the Florida Legislature to pass new exceptions to a state law granting access to public records, which, during three more Sunshine Sundays, thwarted about 300 proposed exemptions to open-government laws, according to the site.
Other states began their own versions, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors sponsored the first National Sunshine Week was in 2005.
The need to spread the sunshine in Texas is just as important as it was in Florida. While the Lone Star State has its share of vigorous proponents of open government, it also has more than its share of elected and appointed officials who would like to keep their actions a secret.
This lack of transparency is particularly acute here in the Rio Grande Valley.
The Valley Morning Star is confronted with this behavior on a regular basis in its effort to report the news. Its reporters face governing bodies that use executive sessions for matters that are not supposed to be discussed behind closed doors, as well as those that cast key votes with little or no discussion, giving rise to suspicions that the matters unlawfully had been discussed - and settled - outside the confines of public meetings.
Our reporters also run into hurdles from government "public information officers" who are consistently unavailable to provide public information or, when contacted, refuse to provide information.
Another common stumbling block to reporting on public matters are those government entities that routinely require the filing of Freedom of Information requests for records that are patently open to the public. The 10-day waiting period is provided by law so that entities can consult with the Texas Attorney General's Office as to whether the information is public. But local entities often use the provision as a stalling tactic or as a means to "have paperwork" for requests of information whose public status is not in doubt.
At this rate, the freedom of information, the right to know, will be undeniably subservient to government's license to act in secret - if it hasn't already been reached.
This is not the intent of the Texas Public Information Act, which states, "The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created."
Our republic, in order for it to survive, requires a vigilant public and a vigilant press. Our nation's Founders protected the freedom to question government authority and to thus keep such authority from wrongfully intruding on our personal liberties.
Sunshine Week lasts only seven days. Citizens in a free society have a duty to question their leaders and so preserve our freedoms, no matter which week it is.
