Club files closed-meeting suit

BOISE – The Idaho Press Club asked a state judge Thursday to bar the state Legislature from closing any formal legislative committee meetings to the public.

Voters “demand that their government operate in the light of day, rather than behind the secrecy of closed doors,” Press Club President Mark Browning said.

Legislative leaders responded that they have done their best to ensure that everything but matters requiring confidentiality on security or legal grounds is handled in the open.

“We have done our level-best not to have any closed-door meetings except when our attorney comes up to brief us on legal issues,” House Speaker Bruce Newcomb said. “That’s attorney-client privilege.”

Yet state Democratic leaders praised the Idaho Press Club for bringing the issue to a head.

“I’m pleased that the press club has taken this step,” Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett, of Ketchum, said. “We encouraged them to do so. We believe the constitution is clear that the business of the public must be done in the open.”

The lawsuit was filed in response to seven instances in the past 18 months in which House and Senate committees barred the media and general public from official meetings. Two of those involved briefings on water-rights negotiations that had been subjected to a gag order by the District Court.

In January, Stennett and Sen. Fred Kennedy, D-Mountain Home, who both serve on the Senate Resources Committee, walked out of one of those closed-door meetings. The two Democrats said the Senate Democratic Caucus had decided unanimously that its members wouldn’t participate in closed-door meetings, which are expressly prohibited by the Idaho Open Meeting Law and also may violate the Idaho Constitution.

The committee’s chairman said he felt obligated to have the closed session because he wanted lawmakers briefed on pending mediation in the complex Snake River adjudication lawsuit.

“We weren’t trying to stage a big protest,” Stennett said Thursday. “We wanted to make a statement that the Legislature is a public body doing business with public money and we need to do it in the open.”

Legislative leaders cited their internal procedural rules as justifying the secrecy. Press Club attorney Allen Derr maintained that rules cannot trump the mandates of the constitution.

Judge Kathryn Sticklen was assigned the case. Both sides predicted the issue would ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court.

The state constitution requires that “the business of each house, and of the committee of the whole, shall be transacted openly and not in secret session.” The lawsuit filed in 4th District Court claims secret – or executive – sessions are prohibited.

But another provision in the same article gives the House and Senate the power to “determine its own rules of proceeding.”

“There seems to be some ambiguity between what the constitution requires and what legislators think they can do by their own rules,” media attorney Deb Christensen said.

But Senate Republican Floor Leader Bart Davis argued that there was no ambiguity if an attempt is made to make those two constitutional provisions compatible. Under that approach, the open meetings mandate covers only the floor sessions of the full House and Senate, he said, while the power to set its own procedures gives the Legislature authority over how its committees will operate, including when meetings can be secret.

“In the case of confidential information, meetings were closed,” Davis said. “But we tried to keep open all the committee meetings possible. Of the hundreds of meetings that have been held since I’ve been here, only a nominal number have been held in executive session.”

The lawsuit does not take on the issue of closed political meetings of party members in each House. Christensen said the legality of those closed caucuses was a murkier question than the official committee meeting.