Gregoire reveals rejected applicants

OLYMPIA – Gov. Chris Gregoire has changed her mind about keeping some “Sunshine Committee” applications secret, releasing documents to the Associated Press about a week after saying she would keep them under wraps.

The 20 pages of resumes, letters and e-mails regarding seven unsuccessful committee applicants were released Thursday and Friday, after Gregoire asked each person whether they objected to the information being made public.

The Sunshine Committee’s job is to sort through the more than 300 exemptions to the Public Records Act and recommend instances where the Legislature can keep, repeal or amend particular exemptions that allow government information to be kept from the public.

In her initial denial of the records, Gregoire cited a Public Records Act exemption that says applications for public employment may be kept secret.

“She wanted to waive the exemption but didn’t want to do that without giving people the opportunity to protect their personal information if they wanted to,” spokeswoman Holly Armstrong said Friday.

None of the applicants objected, and two criticized the Democratic governor’s decision not to release the documents. If any of the applicants had objected, however, Gregoire would have kept their information secret, Armstrong said.

Open government advocates scoffed at Gregoire’s stance last week, saying volunteer posts on the committee shouldn’t be considered state employment for the purposes of the public records law.

Gregoire plans to ask the committee to examine that legal question, Armstrong said, in light of the governor’s view that the exemption applies to people seeking seats on a wide range of appointed boards and commissions.

Toby Nixon, a former Republican state lawmaker and acting president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, applauded Gregoire’s change of position.

“I am never one to accuse someone of flip-flopping when they’re moving in the right direction,” Nixon said. “To the extent that people change their minds and do the right thing, we should support that.”

However, he added, “I wish that the governor’s reflex was to be open rather than to be closed.”

State Attorney General Rob McKenna’s disclosure office was still processing a similar AP request for documents regarding appointments to the committee by McKenna, a Republican.

“Based upon your request, I can’t really see that there’s going to be a lot of exemptions,” public records officer K. P. Bodnar said Friday.

She noted the possibility that personal telephone or Social Security numbers could be redacted.

That was the approach taken by state Auditor Brian Sonntag, a Democrat, in his earlier reply to a similar AP records request.