Sunday, May 27, 2001

Darrel Rowland
Dispatch Public Affairs Editor

Do you care if a bill was written not by the legislative sponsor but by the National Rifle Association?

Does it interest you when a lobbyist who also serves as a senator's campaign manager writes an amendment giving a corporate client a $4 million tax break and then gets the senator to slide the measure into an existing bill?

And wouldn't you really like to know just why the Ohio Senate president wanted to change the definition of beer in this state?

Well, OK, maybe not that last one.

But Ohio legislators don't want you to have any of this information, because it comes from the Legislative Services Commission, or LSC. It is the General Assembly's research and bill-writing arm.

Those juicy tidbits were turned up even though the files had been ordered sanitized by LSC Director Robert Shapiro after The Dispatch asked to see them. Shapiro sent out a memo telling his staff to purge material before the files were scrutinized.

All the above examples are necessarily a bit stale, since the legislature ordered LSC records sealed off from the public nearly two years ago.

Now, the General Assembly wants to close off this information from courts and investigators, as well, effectively exempting themselves, LSC staffers and their communications from scrutiny by anyone.

Bet Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton wish they had had that kind of cover.

The new secrecy clause was slipped into the budget bill by Senate President Richard H. Finan.

What's government secrecy got to do with the state budget? Legislators claim their costs will go down if they don't have to copy materials and prepare testimony for those nosy judges, who have the gall to keep finding laws passed by the General Assembly unconstitutional.

Lawmakers, such as Sen. Bruce Johnson, a Columbus Republican who usually is quite open about the legislative process, also contend General Assembly members would be reluctant to explore various alternatives with the LSC on controversial issues if the public is able to see such research requests.

I haven't heard any consideration given to a suggestion a couple of years ago from Ray Cadwallader, spokesman for Common Cause-Ohio and himself a former legislator, at least to open up LSC files after a bill has been introduced. This would show the origin of the bill and who actually wrote it -- surely a matter of public interest.

But there hasn't been time for an intelligent debate on this issue. Majority Republicans seem more interested in mimicking techniques used in Washington: quietly sneak a controversial proposal into a larger bill that is sure to pass and ram it through on a party-line vote. Gee, we wouldn't want to display a little political courage here and have a separate vote on this issue, would we?

Democrats have reached impressive rhetorical heights in recent weeks with righteous indignation about the GOP's penchant for secrecy. I guess I'd feel a lot better if I knew the Dems wouldn't be doing the same if they were in control.

This legislative session is not yet 5 months old, and already lawmakers have built an impressive record of governing outside of public view.

First, there was a month's worth of closed-door meetings using secret documents to develop a plan to fund schools and spend $45 billion in taxpayers' money.

Then came the revelation that an LSC analysis showed the legislature has saddled Ohio schools with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of unfunded mandates, a possible violation of last year's school-funding edict by the Ohio Supreme Court. The analysis mysteriously had been kept under wraps for seven months after its due date in October. The legislative inspector general is investigating amid claims that the report's author got political pressure to keep the document secret.

Next was a proposal, also buried deep within the budget bill, to remove information about people who complain about problems with their telephones and other utilities to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Funny thing was, no one from the public had expressed a desire for such protection. And now PUCO staffers are quietly saying the move -- which they found out about by reading the newspaper -- would hinder their work against such utility giants as Ameritech.

Somehow, I must have missed those speeches from legislative candidates last year campaigning on a pledge of going to Columbus so they could ensure the public gets less information about state government.

Must this be said, in the year 2001, that what goes on inside the hallowed halls of state government is the people's business?

Do we have to remind these supposed public servants to represent our interests -- ours, not theirs? That we're not only paying their salaries but the cost of the paper used for their secret documents and even the electric bill for those rooms where they hold their secret meetings?

Open up. Let the people in.

Darrel Rowland is Dispatch public affairs editor.

drowland@dispatch.com