Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Open-meeting changes concern law’s author

Josh Wright Staff writer

BOISE – The original author of Idaho’s Open Meeting Law is condemning proposed changes in internal rules of the Senate that would allow more opportunities for closed committee meetings.

Former Post Falls Rep. Gary Ingram sent a letter over the weekend to the Senate Judiciary Committee, writing that the issue “gets down to whether or not you are an advocate of openness.”

Senate Republican leadership will propose rules changes in the Judiciary Committee Friday that would allow closed committee meetings for any reason. Current Senate rules allow closures only for certain topics, including personnel matters, litigation cases and land negotiations.

Ingram, who now lives in Coeur d’Alene, said there’s no legislative committee business that needs to be done privately. The Open Meeting Law says all legislative committee meetings are open to the public.

“If you agree that the business of committee action is essentially that of formation of public policy,” Ingram said, “and if you agree with the principles of the public’s right to know, you must then logically support open committee meetings without equivocation.”

Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, a lawyer and member of the Judiciary Committee, dismissed Ingram’s concerns, saying, “The Senate has the right to define its own rules. … It’s improper to cede to another body.”

As a Republican representative when the law was passed in 1974, Ingram said he saw abuses of secrecy around the state at every level – whether it was city, county or state government. Despite strong opposition at the outset, he pushed the bill through the Legislature and it was signed into law.

In the Open Meeting Law’s preamble, Ingram wrote 31 years ago, “The people of the State of Idaho in creating the instruments of government that serve them, do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies so created. Therefore, the legislature finds and declares that it is the policy of this state that the formation of public policy is public business and shall not be conducted in secret.”

That preamble, Ingram said, should be the “guiding light for those seeking enlightenment about the public’s right to know.”

A variety of legislative committees have met in closed sessions half a dozen times over the past two years, from the Senate Health and Welfare Committee to the House Resources Committee. Arguing those closed meetings violate the state Constitution, the Idaho Press Club has sued the Legislature. A hearing in the lawsuit is set for Thursday.

Senate Democratic leadership bemoaned the potential Senate rules changes at a caucus at the end of last week, contending the public’s perception of the Legislature was at stake.