Throw open the doors and bring in the sunshine. Conduct public business in front of the public. Yet that simple idea remains elusive.
Congressman Vern Buchanan gets it. He wants Congress to negotiate health care reform out in the open, not behind closed doors and hidden from the people they serve.
The Longboat Key Republican recently introduced legislation in the House that would force the House-Senate conference committee to meet in front of the public and press. Currently, that point in the process could be cloaked in secrecy.
With the House edging closer to a final bill this week and the Senate poised to begin debate later this month, Americans deserve to witness the monumental overhaul of health care once these two bills enter a congressional conference committee.
Why does public business continue to be conducted in private at all levels of government? The old adage that nobody wants to watch somebody make sausage because it’s distasteful couldn’t be more wrong. Nobody has to buy sausage. As unpleasant as politics can be, we’re force fed whatever politicians cook up.
The Democratic majority and President Obama should not cut a deal in secret. This particular public policy is too important and too far reaching, and every citizen deserves the opportunity to witness the negotiations.
Sunshine state?
Here in a state that boasts Sunshine Laws requiring open government and access to public records, the Florida Legislature matches Congress in back-room deals over critical legislation. Lawmakers, specifically the leaders, hammer out the state budget all alone. Billions in taxpayer dollars are doled out in secrecy.
How’s that working for us? Remember Ray Sansom? The disgraced Destin Republican was forced to resign as House speaker this year after news broke that he steered some $35 million in extra or accelerated state spending to a small school in his Pandhandle district, including $6 million for a dubious airport building. These kinds of last-minute budget deals are common in the Capitol since only a select few write the legislation and this kind of spending usually goes unchallenged in the final vote.
This must be fixed. As Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, D-Sarasota, says, “lead us not into temptation.”
Fitzgerald recently told the Herald’s Editorial Board that the Sansom scandal prompted him and Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, to propose a constitutional amendment that would place the state budget process in front of the public and press — a long overdue action. Furthermore, their measure would force legislators to write budget items in plain English, not in highly technical and dense terms and jargon. The bill would also forbid the filing of amendments in the week prior to a vote to allow time for deliberation and debate. A last-minute amendment is usually “where the bad stuff happens,” Fitzgerald said.
As we’ve opined before, the culture in the Legislature must change. Yet Fitzgerald only gives his amendment a “sliver of hope” for passage.
If this constitutional amendment goes before a public vote, we have little doubt about passage.
Both Congress and the Legislature should remember who signs the checks they write. And respect the public’s right to an open government.
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