ShawneeDispatch.com

It's ironic that, just as we celebrate Sunshine Week (March 12-18), more and more of the public's business is being transacted behind a cloak of secrecy.

Open government -- transacting the public's business in the light of day, for all to see -- ranks right up there with the secret ballot and universal suffrage among the basic building blocks of representative democracy. And yet, there have been too many instances this year when the Kansas Legislature has opted not to put things out in the open where they belong. Some examples:

• The Kansas House failed to act on a bill to open probable cause affidavits after they are served. Only in Kansas are such documents, which tell in basic terms why a person was arrested, presumed to be closed. Kansas thus joins such havens of due process as Cuba in keeping this information away from the public.
• A bill to prevent serial meetings, in which members of boards and commissions meet in small groups to circumvent the Kansas Open Meeting Act, never even got a hearing in the Senate.
• The leaders of the Kansas House bowed to election-year politics in denying an up-or-down vote on a bill to allow recording of executive sessions of public meetings. This bill was vehemently opposed by associations for city and county officials and school boards, who seem to find the basic democratic ideal of open government to be an inconvenience.

There are yet some hopeful signs, but the sunshine is flickering, at best. Two measures are still alive:

• One would require the education of public officials about Kansas open records and open meetings laws.
• The other would make available to the public the names of those who drive members of the public, even if employed by a private company. Across the state, school districts spend millions of dollars in transporting students to and from school and other activities, and it would seem to make sense that the public ought to have a right to know who is being entrusted with this responsibility. Some school districts are lobbying hard against the "inconvenience" of accountability, however.

Do not fall for the line that the press is interested in these issues only for its convenience, or to sell newspapers or promote viewership. The press may be leading the fight, but the real issue is the public's right to know what the government is doing on its supposed behalf.

The initiatives mentioned earlier would serve two purposes: they would help citizens find their way in our democratic system, and they would also build trust in that system. Keeping things secret, even for the purest of motives, fosters suspicion and distrust. Transparent, open government flourishes in the sunshine.