Senators approve closed meetings

BOISE – The Idaho Senate on Thursday easily passed controversial rule changes to allow closed committee meetings for any reason.

The two rule changes proposed by Majority Leader Bart Davis, an Idaho Falls attorney, arrange Senate rules to trump Idaho statutes, including the Open Meeting Law.

“It’s not our intent, as the press argues, to drive open government underground,” said Davis at the beginning of more than an hour of debate.

The first rule passed strikes a provision of internal Senate rules that says if any laws or constitutional provisions are inconsistent with the rules, the conflicting rule defers to the law or Idaho Constitution.

The second amends a part of the rules that says committee meetings can be closed only for specific reasons, including personnel matters, litigation and labor negotiations. Instead, the internal rules were rewritten to match House rules that say committee meetings can be closed for any reason if two-thirds of the committee agrees to it.

“Six senators can decide over morning coffee to have a closed meeting,” said Sen. Mike Burkett, D-Boise. “There’s nothing that can stop them.”

Both rule changes were passed on a 26-9 vote, with all seven Democrats and two Republicans voting against each one. Sen. Shawn Keough, of Sandpoint, voted against the second change.

The Idaho Press Club has sued the Legislature, arguing that the state constitution forbids closed committee meetings. After an appeal of the initial ruling was denied by the 4th District Court last week, the Press Club is taking the case to the Idaho Supreme Court.

“For saying they are such proponents of openness, they are taking away the public’s comfort in relying on the Open Meeting Act,” said Press Club attorney Deb Kristensen. “Those were the only safeguards we had.”

Despite Keough’s vote against the closed committee meeting rule change, she said she sees the need for an occasional executive session. “I trust our leadership to make those decisions” about when meetings should be closed, she said.

She added that lawmakers need to communicate with the press on why they are having closed meetings, and the press needs to inform the public.

“If the press did a better job communicating why we are going into the meetings … the public would have a better understanding,” she said. “They need to know that we are going in for legitimate reasons.”

Of the seven closed committee meetings in the past two years, Keough has been a part of three of them. She said five of the seven were held either because of pending litigation or gag orders.

The Open Meeting Law requires that all legislative committee meetings be open to the public, but lawmakers maintain their rules supercede the law.

GOP Sen. John Goedde, of Coeur d’Alene, supported the changes, but he said he would’ve preferred a rule allowing closed meetings only for certain reasons. He recalled a briefing on a school lawsuit in the Senate Education Committee in which “the opposing attorney was standing there taking notes,” he said.

Democrats argued that all legislative business should be open to the public, no matter what’s being discussed. They held a press conference before the debate on the Capitol steps, which they barricaded in protest of the changes.

“In essence, we are saying that we are above the law,” said Minority Leader Clint Stennett, of Ketchum. “We are rejecting the open meeting statute that we ask every other level of government to follow.”

Burkett said the issue is a matter of accountability. “We ask for accountability from everyone else,” he said. “We should stand for the same thing.”

Assistant Majority Leader Joe Stegner, of Lewiston, said legislators are held accountable. “Everyone one of us is held accountable every two years,” he said. Davis used historical arguments to defend closing meetings for any reason, saying the House has had the same rules for 40 years. It required the public to get permission to attend committee meetings from 1895 to 1947.

“The press is working the public up to a frenzy … saying our intent is to return to the days of 1947,” Davis said.

Democrats will walk out of any future closed meetings, Stennett said, as they’ve done in the past. Moscow Republican Gary Schroeder, who voted against both changes, said he’ll do the same thing.

“The public should be able to formally participate in everything we do,” said Schroeder, adding that democracy can’t survive without a free press.