South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government announced Thursday that they are submitting more than 26,500 signatures to the Secretary of State to place an initiated measure on the November ballot.

The measure would prohibit taxpayer-funded lobbying and expand governmental transparency for state government contracts.

“We are gratified by the tremendous support this measure has received from South Dakota voters,” Jim Anderson of Sioux Falls, a member of the petitioners, said. “As we traveled the state collecting signatures and explaining this proposed ballot measure, we were struck by how many South Dakotans agreed with this common-sense proposal.”

The 26,500 signatures are almost 10,000 more than needed to place the initiative on the November ballot. Like other petition groups, South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government sought well above the required number to account for possibility that some would be rejected for technical problems.

The initiated measure would change South Dakota law in four ways:

* Taxpayer funds could not be used to lobby or campaign for partisan political agendas, including increased taxes.

* Legislators and their staff would be unable to use their legislative positions to secure a “golden-parachute,” state-contracted job.

* The “pay to play” system — where state contracts are traded for campaign donations — would be outlawed.

* A simple, searchable Web site with information about all state contracts over $500 (excluding employment contracts), would be launched so citizens can know how their money is being spent.

Tonchi Weaver, a board member from Rapid City, said, “This initiative will shine a light on the cozy relationship between elected officials, lobbyists and contractors, and restrict personal gain from public service.”

Source: Rapid City Journal

How effectively are we getting the open government message out? Is our call to the public proactive or largely reactive?

These are two questions we hope every journalist engaged in commentary and opinion writing has asked or will ask themselves. We believe that even a strong and positive response to both will be followed the acknowledgment, “It’s not enough.”

To help provoke new ideas for editorials, columns and op ed pieces, and new ways of looking at open government issues, we offer a selection of opinion pieces we’ve found in our surfing or that have been recommended to us. We’ll keep changing these to share fresh ideas and approaches. We hope you’ll find the selections below useful. If you read a commentary on FOI that you believe is effective, please share it with us. Send it, or the link, to cjog@cjog.net

http://www.cjog.net/commentary.html 

PIERRE - (Argus Leader) - A House committee Wednesday killed an open-records bill that would require the government to justify denying public access to documents.

The measure raises too many questions about how records dealing with personal information, public safety or other sensitive issues would be treated, some opponents said.

“I think they need to go back to the task force and work on a bill that they can agree on there, then bring it back,” said Rep. Shantel Krebs, R-Sioux Falls, after the House’s State Affairs Committee killed the bill 7-6.

Sen. Nancy Turbak Berry, D-Watertown, sponsored the bill. She said after the meeting that although the vote was close, she doubted she’d try to revive it this session.

“I will keep working on it and hammering at it,” she said. “It isn’t finished by any means.”

She said opposition from Gov. Mike Rounds’ office helped kill the bill.

“Whatever we’d try to change at this point would be nitpicked word by word,” Turbak Berry said.

She served on a task force organized by Attorney General Larry Long that reviewed the status of government records in South Dakota. State law generally says records required by law to be kept are open. Numerous specific laws close different individual records or classes of records. But Long’s review found that a vast number of records fall somewhere between those two areas. It also found that government officials have wide discretion to make decisions on whether to open or close records.

The task force was unable to agree on a bill making substantive changes in open-records laws. Turbak Berry said her bill was gleaned from much of the work of one task force subcommittee.

Her bill would put the burden on government to show why a document should be closed.

“Unless there is a good reason that government can point to why a record is not open, then it is open,” Turbak Berry said. “Keeping things from you and me ought to be the exception, not the rule.”

Opponents said the bill was unclear in many areas and would require government officials to make judgment calls about release of records.

Jeff Bloomberg, Rounds’ commissioner of the Bureau of Administration, said the presumption in the bill is that government workers aren’t acting in good faith when they deny a record request. That isn’t so, he said.

Bloomberg also said the bill includes no provision to notify citizens that private information government may hold on them has been released to someone in a records request. That’s important because of how quickly information can be disseminated, he said.

“We’re talking about a day when any information, in a matter of seconds, can be put on one of those laptops and distributed worldwide,” Bloomberg said.

Mark Roby, publisher of the Watertown Public Opinion and a task force member, said the presumption law would help people get information from local governments.

“It isn’t good out there in the local government situation when you’re looking for information that people don’t want you to see,” he said.

Turbak Berry said she was surprised at why governments would want to keep records secret.

“Even here in friendly, decent South Dakota, we find that people who have power don’t want to share it, sometimes even with other elected people, and that’s a sad day in South Dakota,” she said. “Democracy isn’t always convenient, but it’s always right.”

House Republican leader Larry Rhoden of Union Center said the media often abuses access to open records, pointing to actions by the Argus Leader in 2006 to publish the names of concealed weapons permit-holders. The information was obtained before a law sealing those records went into place.

“That created a great deal of heartburn with me and it still does to this day, because the citizens of this state agreed that list should not be public and yet the newspaper, which is looking out for our best interests, let its own morals and its own set of standards take precedent over the will of people of the state of South Dakota,” he said.

The committee did pass a bill giving the state Office of Hearing Examiners authority to settle fights over government records.

The measure, which goes to the full House for action, is intended to give citizens seeking government records a place to go if their requests are denied or if they are told the documents would cost a great deal to provide.

Reach reporter Terry Woster at 605-224-2760.