Archives for January 2010

Editorial from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Say it ain’t so!

Idaho Democrats are going the way of their Republican brethren when it comes to government secrecy.

The minority Democrats, with just 18 House seats and seven in the Senate, made the decision to caucus behind closed doors to maximize their effectiveness.

That reason doesn’t fly with us.

The party would be more effective if it continued to conduct its business in the open.

Closed meetings between elected officials smack of shady deals and other shenanigans, once the norm when the public was nothing more than a money source.

Open meeting laws have all but eliminated secret gatherings, but that doesn’t stop elected officials from attempting to meet behind closed doors.

In Idaho, closed caucuses are allowed as a way for political parties to discuss strategy and priorities. We wonder why Republicans in the Gem State would feel the need to have such meetings when they dominate every aspect of the legislative process by their sheer numbers.

It seems the only resistance the GOP receives on a regular basis is from the state’s Republican governor, who never met a Legislature he couldn’t bully.

It would behoove the Democrats to keep the status quo of open meetings and transparency. There’s not a whole bunch of strategy that’s going to deal a huge setback to the GOP agenda.

Unfettered access to our elected officials is essential to the governing process, especially on the state and local levels.

The process stops being public once those doors close.

We cannot say for certain if legislation is illegally discussed in caucuses, because we can’t attend the meetings and participants are tight-lipped.

We encourage Idaho Democrats to reconsider their decision. It’s the best way for voters to see how their party conducts its business without having to employ X-ray vision.

Editorial from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

From The Spokesman-Review

BOISE – Idaho’s House and Senate minority caucuses have voted to close their meetings to the public, saying they don’t want Republicans to get a glimpse of their game plan.

“To maximize our effectiveness in the Legislature, we must take the field with every advantage that we can muster,” said House Assistant Minority Leader James Ruchti, D-Pocatello.

Democratic caucuses in both the House and Senate have been open to the public for nearly a decade, while majority Republican caucuses remained closed.

“This change is effective immediately,” Democratic leaders from both houses announced Monday morning in a press release; Democrats from both houses went into a closed-door caucus immediately after issuing the release.

“It was unanimous,” said Senate Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise. “It was a strategic decision.”

Though Idaho’s party caucuses traditionally have met behind closed doors, there’s been little public support for the practice. In 2003, the annual Boise State University Public Policy Survey, a respected statewide poll, found that 76 percent of Idahoans thought all the caucuses should be open, and only 8 percent thought they should remain closed.

Ruchti said, “I think our constituents will certainly weigh in on it, and if they dislike closed caucuses, they’ll have the ability to let us know – they usually do that at the polls.”

Under pressure from media groups and others, the House Minority Caucus opened its meetings to the public in 2001, and the Senate Democratic Caucus opened up in 2002.

The majority caucuses in both houses opted to remain closed, but in 2003 House Republicans adopted a new caucus policy limiting what their caucus can do in closed-door meetings, saying closed sessions will be held only to develop party political policy or to elect party leaders, promising that no legislation will be drafted in closed-door caucuses, and saying that “discussion of any public policy issue, including legislation, shall be for educational and informational purposes only.”

Caucuses are meetings of each party’s members in the House or Senate. Though the state Constitution requires all the business of the Legislature to be conducted in public, party caucus meetings traditionally have been closed.

That’s aroused increasing controversy in the past decade, as the Republican caucus took in such a large majority that it nearly constituted the entire Legislature. In 2001, a major package of tax-cut legislation was crafted in extended closed-door meetings of the Senate Republican Caucus, which at that time held all but three of the seats in the Senate.

Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, who was House minority leader when the Democrats decided to open the doors, won an open government award in 2001 for her caucus’ decision. But she said Monday that she supports the closure move. “I just think we need a chance to help develop our own policy ourselves – it’s better for our districts,” she said.

Said Ruchti, “What it does for you is it allows you to have disagreements in an environment where you can be comfortable having disagreements. It allows you to explore ideas that are not fully developed. … We’re doing it with the intention of becoming better representatives of our constituents.”

From The Spokesman-Review

From the Idaho Statesman

The legislative minority abandoned its argument that Democrats are the champions of transparency at the Legislature.

Shortly before 11 a.m., a Democratic aide distributed a statement loaded with sports metaphors to reporters, saying the House and Senate caucuses had unanimously voted to close their caucuses.

As the news release was distributed, 18 House Democrats and seven Senate Democrats met behind closed doors in their party’s House caucus room. An Idaho Statesman reporter who opened the door was advised that the meeting was closed.

Democrats opened their meetings in 2001 to emphasize their accountability to the public. They also sought to highlight the fact that the Republican majority’s closed meetings could decide critical issues because of their supermajorities in both houses. Democrats often complained that public business was being decided behind closed doors.

But in April, Rep. Brian Cronin, D-Boise, advocated closing caucuses, saying Democrats were at a disadvantage because the party’s strategy couldn’t be kept quiet.

“Sports coaches don’t allow reporters into their halftime meetings with their teams,” Cronin said last year. “When we’ve got one party playing chess and the other playing by Candyland rules, it seems disadvantageous.”

From the Idaho Statesman