It was citizens, not bureaucrats or politicians, who threw back the curtains and let sunshine illuminate the formation of public policy in Washington state.

Voters approved Initiative 276 in 1972 out of weariness with secrecy and closed government, but they weren’t unreasonable. They recognized, pragmatically, that in limited circumstances, some meetings needed to be closed, some records needed to be withheld. So they tempered their overall insistence on openness with a handful of exemptions.

The handful has grown to a boxcar load. More than 300 provisions have been written into state law, giving government excuses to conduct an increasing amount of business in the shadows.

Even without exemptions, too many government agencies make it as hard as they can for the public and news media to get their hands on records that are clearly supposed to be open. Court proceedings, exhaustive paperwork, delay – these are favorite tactics of concealment.

So the last thing open government needs is more exemptions that legitimize secrecy.

State Attorney General Rob McKenna seems to recognize this, and he wants to reverse the pattern. He will ask the Legislature, which convenes next month, to create a “sunshine committee” that would review all existing exemptions and make recommendations as to which ones should be kept and which repealed.

It’s a good idea, but it could be improved.

The committee McKenna has in mind would consist of nine members – all of them named by political figures and all but one from within government. That’s the wrong balance.

All four caucus leaders in the Legislature would have representatives. The governor would have a representative and would appoint a another member representing local government. The attorney general would have a representative and would select another from a news media association. The state auditor would provide the final member.

The presumption, says McKenna, is that the committee members, besides being favorable to disclosure, would be in a political position to make sure the recommendations were implemented. But if anyone benefits from secrecy in government it is the people who work within it.

A better approach would be to compose a committee mostly, if not entirely, of citizens. It should be selected independently, like citizen panels that have dealt with many salary and redistricting issues. Let the recommendations be made by private citizens, who are the ones denied information by these exemptions.

McKenna says he wouldn’t oppose a more citizen-dominated structure if the Legislature takes that approach.

It was, after all, the public that demanded open government. It was the government that eroded it. Which should we trust to restore the openness that is the fundamental instrument of accountability?