Sunshine Week, March 15-21, is intended to promote discussion and awareness of issues related to public disclosure and freedom of information laws, considered vital tools not only for journalists but for our democracy itself.
And this is how state and national officials have marked the occasion:
The Obama White House made official its policy, first advanced by the Bush administration and upheld in the courts, that exempts the Office of Administration, which is within the Executive Office of the President, from complying with the federal Freedom of Information Act. Much of the White House already was exempt from FOIA laws, specifically the president, vice president and many advisers.
Lawmakers in the Washington state Legislature allowed a bill to die that would have required lawmakers to annually report meals paid for by lobbyists. A 2013 Associated Press investigation into lobbyist-paid meals found some lawmakers were eating regularly at lobbyist expense despite a law that said the meals had to be on an “infrequent” basis. Legislation last year defined “infrequent” as 12, but lawmakers balked this year at disclosing who pays for the meals and how much.
Need we go into any further detail about Hillary Clinton and her emails?
As a newspaper, The Herald relies heavily on public disclosure laws and the Freedom of Information Act.
Rules that require political campaigns to report their donations and spending allow our reporters to keep tabs on candidates and ballot measures and those who support them.
FOIA requests allow us to gather information vital to our reporting and can reveal details and revelations that otherwise could have gone unknown to the public.
Obviously, FOIA requests were imperative in the work by Herald reporters Scott North and Noah Haglund into the 2013 investigation of former County Executive Aaron Reardon’s questionable actions related to his office and his political campaign.
The Herald also used FOIA requests in investigating the $85,000 that was paid to an Oso landowner for an easement to build a temporary road following the March 22, 2014 landslide, when all other landowners accepted far less.
FOIA requests were used in compiling a November account of lawsuit settlements by Snohomish County over deaths at its jail, vehicle accidents and, ironically, public records requests.
Most recently, an FOIA request was necessary in investigating sexual harassment complaints against Everett City Councilman Ron Gipson at his workplace, the Denney Juvenile Justice Center.
There’s an annual battle of legislation each year in the Legislature over public disclosure and freedom of information, some of it seeking to allow more sun to shine on the workings of government, some of it intended to keep those workings in the shadows.
Consider the examples above as reasons to keep the sun shining.
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