Right-to-Know: May 2009 Archives
According to RSA 91-A there are only a very limited number of reasons that a nonpublic session would be allowed. To go into nonpublic session, a motion must be made and seconded in public session, citing the reason from the statute, (there are only 9) and a majority roll-call vote is required. Once in nonpublic session, only the reason(s) cited in the original motion may be discussed. To come out of non public session, a motion must be made and seconded and a roll call vote taken. This must be noted in the minutes of the public meeting. Meeting minutes of a nonpublic session must be made available to the public sooner than regular meeting minutes: 72 hours for non public minutes versus 144 hours for all other meeting minutes. However, if two-thirds of the members present, in a recorded vote, decide to seal the minutes because the reasons justifying the need for nonpublic session remain, the minutes will remain sealed. Minutes that the board has voted to seal should be placed in a secure place within the office, and a notation attached that they are sealed, so that they are not inadvertently released to the public. The board may want to institute a policy of reviewing sealed meeting minutes on a periodic basis to determine if any should be released because the reasons for the nonpublic session no longer exist. Once the reason to seal the minutes no longer exists, the minutes should be released.
Note from the MCA: This bill was supported by our State House Rep. Betsey Patten. It is as the editorial headline states a bad law.
Editorial
The Citizen May 8, 2009
The death of House Bill 349 was a win for transparent government and the people of
The bill was defeated in the state Senate Tuesday, but House advocates of the measure promise they will be back with something like it, if not in this session of the Legislature, then when the same lawmakers convene in 2010.
HB 349 would have shielded from the public electronic communications between themselves and their constituents. The argument in its favor reflected a concern by some lawmakers that “fear on the part of constituents and others that their communications will be made public without their knowledge or consent has had and will continue to have a chilling effect on such communications to the detriment of the legislative process.”
The bill would have darkened the work of the Legislature further by prohibiting the issuance of subpoenas when wrongdoing might be suspected.
What HB 349 would have done was to allow the creation of a wall between some legislators and the people of their state.
The 400 members of the House of Representatives and 24 senators are elected by people in particular districts, but they have a broader responsibility once they take office — one to all the people of
The attempt to shield legislative e-mail from subpoena was a particularly onerous provision of HB 349 and by itself was cause for defeat in the Senate Tuesday. The provision exempted lawmakers from the legal process that holds them responsible to the people. It was a provision that put them above the people and the laws they are sworn to uphold.
The bill crafted in, and passed by, the House of Representatives included the following: “All such electronic records shall be confidential and privileged and shall be protected from direct or indirect means of discovery, subpoena, or admission into evidence in any judicial or administrative proceeding.”
It is language that strikes at the very foundation of law enforcement. It protects from discovery in an e-mail evidence of wrongdoing, even criminal conspiracy. It shields lawmakers from the legal process that protects and reasonably restrains each of us.
Language that puts lawmakers above the law is reason enough for the defeat of such legislation and something against which the attorney general should testify in hearings on similar measures in the future.
House Bill 349 asked for too much trust. It did not bring lawmakers and constituents closer together; on the contrary, it would have allowed, and in some cases even promoted, less responsibility and less responsiveness. The people of New Hampshire trust their lawmakers and others they elect to office, but even so, they should guard against any actions that might undermine that trust — actions such as the now defunct HB349The people of New Hampshire trust their lawmakers and others they elect to office, but even so, they should guard against any actions that might undermine that trust — actions such as the now defunct HB349
Editorial
Friday, May 1, 2009
The law applies to everyone — except the lawmakers.
The people who enact laws can, if they choose, exempt themselves. They travel our highways at speeds that would earn we more common folk a summons to appear in court. While the rest of us are using E-ZPass or paying cash at the state’s toll booths, lawmakers pass through at no cost.
Now they want e-mail exchanges with constituents to be privileged information, an exception to the Right to Know law, a law so many people worked so hard to design and implement.
The history of Chapter 91-A of New Hampshire’s Revised Statutes Annotated has been a half-century struggle, two steps forward and one step back. Its beginnings were landed in the altogether logical beliefs and contentions that the people were the final governing authority, and for them to govern effectively, they must be exposed to and have access to the same information to which their elected representatives might be entitled.
There are exceptions to the Right to Know law crafted to protect the interests of the people. Among them is information pertaining to law enforcement investigations, the negotiation of contracts and the pursuit of decisions at law having an affect on the people and their interests.
The broad technological change that resonated through the late 20th century and into the 21st saw giant leaps in communication, not the least of which has been electronic mail transmission — e-mail.
The value of e-mail cannot be overstated. Where once the written word took days to get from sender to recipient, today it travels in seconds.
E-mail has become a useful tool in the execution of government. It is a supplement to traditional methods of exchange or the sometimes misunderstood implications or inferences in telephone conversation.
Transparency is the word that has been coined to describe the need to let the people look through government’s many windows and into its sometimes shadowy corners. Right to know is the term that still best applies. It clearly describes in three words the entire principle and its parts.
State lawmakers — the step they want to take is to exempt from disclosure e-mail communication between themselves and constituents.
The Senate’s committee on Election Law and Veterans Affairs met this week, but took no action on HB 349, which would write the exception into law. Earlier, the measure sailed through the House.
The substance of the bill is to allow lawmakers to decide which electronic communications from constituents would be subject to the Right to Know law. Those feathers you might soon see will be the ones caused by the fox entering the chicken coop.
Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, had this to say about e-mail communication between lawmakers and constituents: “It’s not a public conversation, and it should not be a public record.”
One more barricade between lawmakers and the people as a whole.
The attitude in
There are people in the Legislature who are uncomfortable with codification of the public’s right to know. We are uncomfortable with it at times ourselves — when lawmakers try and sometimes succeed in building a wall between themselves and the people of
It is as if a right to know applies only when they meet as a body while, even then, allowing them to decide what moment qualifies.
Public trust deserves something better.
