The public’s right to know what the Idaho Legislature is doing at almost all times lost the first round of a legal battle that will be decided ultimately by the state Supreme Court.

To Republican leaders’ comfort, 4th District Court Judge Kathryn Sticklen ruled recently that legislative committees can close their meetings for any reason. Never mind that committees serve the crucial function of introducing and studying legislation, accepting public testimony, and making recommendations about proposed laws that are often rubber-stamped by the full House or Senate.

Sticklen’s ruling provides ammunition for legislative leaders who believe they shouldn’t be subject to the state 1974 Open Meetings Law that applies to every level of government below them. Also, it ignores the original intent of the law written by Gary Ingram, a former Post Falls Republican representative. In an interview with The Spokesman-Review earlier this year, Ingram said:

“The intent was to recognize that the business of each house included its policy formation and deliberations in committee. If committee work is not part of the ‘business of the house,’ what on Earth is it?”

Much of committee work is routine and even brain-numbing, involving nuts-and-bolts minutiae that only a policy wonk or journalist would find interesting. Occasionally, however, an item will come before a committee that has wide-ranging repercussions, involving a variety of issues from tax increases to water law to field burning. Committees shouldn’t be allowed to close their meetings simply because they are dealing with ticklish issues. We applaud the Idaho Press Club for its plans to appeal Judge Sticklen’s decision.

Since 1990, only six of the thousands of committee meetings were closed, according to Bob Fick of the Associated Press. But five of those closed meetings occurred in 2003, prompting the state’s media leaders to react, fearing a trend. Fick provided an overview of the five closed meetings: Three involved briefings on court cases. At the fourth, regulators briefed lawmakers about the vulnerability of drinking water systems to terrorism. At the fifth, legislators discussed procedures that would be used to consider tax increase bills that year.

Unfortunately, the Idaho Constitution, unlike the Open Meetings Law, sends mixed signals about legislative openness.

In one part, the Idaho Constitution requires that “the business of each house, and of the committee of the whole, shall be transacted openly and not in secret session.” Another provision in the same article, though, gives each chamber the power to “determine its own rules of proceeding.” Judge Sticklen, the attorney general’s office and GOP leaders have interpreted the conflicting statements to support secrecy.

But open-meeting defender Ingram doesn’t agree with that interpretation. In a letter to lawmakers, he said: “I would hope that you would become advocates of openness rather than joining those who would seek ways to circumvent the law.” We hold out that hope, too.