Our Wyoming Legislature has taken a couple of recent steps to improve government transparency. But they have a lot more work to do in that regard.
God bless ‘em for back-tracking on a boneheaded proposal to exclude the press from parts of the Capitol building. They did so only after a noisy hue and cry from citizens, but they did it.
I am also given to understand that the Legislature is considering tabulating floor votes electronically and displaying them on a Jumbo-tron for everyone to see. This is another step away from government secrecy and toward political sunshine. Bravo!
Our citizen legislature can take a quantum leap toward regaining the trust of Wyomingites if they repeal any statutes that serve as a curtain between what they are doing and the people on whose behalf they are doing it. They can come all the way out into the sunlight and let us watch them make our sausage.
I would draw the legislators’ attention to state statute 28-8-116. Confidential communications. The title itself arouses suspicion. It evokes murky visions of elected officials making secret deals that they don’t want us, the Great Unwashed, to know about.
Here’s a link to the statute: Confidential communications.
It says that, except for recorded meetings, legislators’ communications and correspondence with their staffers, contractors and consultants, and constituents all are confidential.
This section provides bureaucratic hiding cover for legislators, and pretty much exempts them from the Wyoming Public Records Act (WPRA), which they themselves enacted. It creates a big, dark shadow the Legislature can crawl into when they don’t want us to know what they are doing in our name.
This law should be repealed or amended to make sure that the authors of the WPRA are subject to the conditions of the act, and can’t conceal their actions behind a bunch of lawyer talk.
The bona fide instances when government secrets should be kept from us are few and far between... I can see where it might not be a good idea to publish the names of our spies on foreign soil, or our nuclear codes, but that’s about it.
In the small town with unusually long streets that is Wyoming, there should be no secrets among us. We should not tolerate a government that doesn’t trust us to know what is going on in Cheyenne.
There is no denying that a wave of populism is sweeping over the Big Empty, for good or ill. Elected officials who can’t see that put their election certificates at risk.
The folks who live on our unusually long streets have a bone to pick with “establishment elites” who too often consider themselves above the rest of us.
Maybe this is where the Wyoming Freedom Caucus proves its worthiness of the trust the voters have placed in them. If the Freedom Caucus’ campaign rhetoric about openness and transparency in government is not just a bunch of hot air, they’ll lead this charge.
If these legislative newbies can rend the curtain of secrecy that separates Wyoming citizens from their government by taking a chainsaw to Wyoming statute 28-8-116, I’ll take back a lot of the bad stuff I’ve said about them.
The ball’s in their court.
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
