From the Greensboro News and Record (3/24/09): Last year, news organizations battled then-Gov. Mike Easley for access to state agency e-mails. Electronic communications, like documents on paper, are public records. The people have a right to see them.
Easley gave in grudgingly, but it’s taken a new administration to make a real commitment to openness. Gov. Bev Perdue respects the letter and spirit of open records laws.
Which leaves the state legislature. Its leaders operate on the opinion that it’s up to individual state senators and representatives to decide whether to release e-mail messages sent and received on their state e-mail service. The bizarre idea behind this opinion is that e-mail correspondence isn’t an official duty of a legislator.
When an elected representative, working in his or her legislative office, exchanges written communications about public issues with constituents, colleagues or lobbyists, he or she is conducting official business.
That principle applies to city council members, county commissioners, school board members and local government employees. They work for the public, and there are few valid reasons why their communications should be hidden from the public.
State legislators make decisions that affect every resident of North Carolina. They write laws, raise or cut taxes and allocate billions of dollars. Many individuals and organizations try to influence their decisions, and citizens ought to be privy to the appeals and arguments pitched to their representatives. That information can help constituents shape their own messages if they choose to contact representatives.
Legislators should be willing to release their e-mails if requested, and many probably are. But the best way to make sure is to explicitly require disclosure for members of the General Assembly, just as disclosure is required of other public officials.
The legislature should follow the lead of many local governments on another initiative as well. They should televise their floor sessions and key committee meetings. Leaders say there’s no money to launch that project now, which certainly is true. It also has been true that the General Assembly has been slow to embrace the spirit of openness.
Televising its sessions, when financially feasible, would amount to a welcome step forward. Citizens who live far from Raleigh can’t take the time to travel there regularly to watch legislative business in person. While major decisions likely still would be made in the offices of a few top legislative leaders, at least the ratification of those decisions in open session could be seen by citizens with cable television.
The legislature always should keep in mind it’s conducting the people’s business.
News & Record Staff Editorial