Our Wyoming Legislature is considering rules that will refuse access for the press to areas in the Wyoming Capitol.
The rationale given is that these areas are the only places where legislators can have private discussions.
That begs the question: why would any elected official want to conduct the public’s business in private?
The Wyoming Legislature is a public institution, the capitol building is a public space and the work of the legislature is the public’s work. Anyone with an election certificate needs to understand that very clearly, and conduct themselves accordingly.
The press, charged by our Constitution to be the eyes and ears of the public, must be free to see and hear what publicly elected officials are doing and saying in order for the press to discharge its responsibility to the public. That responsibility is to report to the citizens what their government is doing on the citizens’ behalf.
If the presence of the free press makes legislators – or any other public officials – nervous or uncomfortable to the point that they deny access to the press, then those officials are unworthy of the public trust. Those officials’ job descriptions, I’ll bet a dollar to a donut, do not include being comfortable.
There should be no “safe spaces” in the capitol where legislators can go to hide so their feelings don’t get hurt by a curious press or a demanding public.
Any public official in Wyoming who thinks otherwise would be well-advised to remember Richard Nixon.
Nixon, if you recall, taped conversations in his office while president, because he wanted a private record of those sensitive discussions. When Congress found out about the tapes during the Watergate investigation, and asked Nixon to turn them over, he refused.
He based his refusal on his claim that there were some things that a president did that Congress or the public should not know about.
The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, and forced Nixon to turn over his tapes. Sure enough, within those taped conversations was the “smoking gun” that ended Nixon’s presidency.
That example should convince Wyoming’s Legislature that there really is nothing that a public official does that should be kept from the public’s knowledge. It should also teach that there are things that a public official just shouldn’t do.
For our legislators to want to keep some shadowy corner or dark nook in the capitol where the press and the public just aren’t welcome is to invite the conclusion that they just didn’t take Nixon’s downfall to heart. That desire for secrecy, in itself, is a violation of the public’s trust.
I can just hear the opponents of government transparency now, ginning up their arguments to justify hiding their work from the public.
They’ll likely throw up in my face that, in 1787, our Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia was conducted behind closed doors, with no access to the public or the press granted. And that is a fact.
I’ll counter that argument by pointing out that the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, wasn’t ratified until four years later. Since then, the people’s right to know what their government is doing through a rigorous free press that shall not be abridged.
Here’s hoping that wiser heads prevail in the Wyoming Legislature, and that these bone-headed rules are voted down. The citizens of Wyoming deserve, and should demand, a legislative body that is unafraid to conduct its business in the clear, bright sunshine.
We deserve a legislature that is proud to show us what it is doing, and doesn’t want to hide in the dark, shadowy corners of the capitol building.
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@Yahoo.com
