Closed meetings measures split parties

BOISE – Senate Democrats on Friday introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit closing any legislative committee hearing, while majority Republicans put finishing touches on a new rule to allow secret meetings only in specific, extraordinary circumstances.

Both sides said their approach was the most prudent response to Monday’s state Supreme Court ruling that held the Legislature has constitutional power to close committee hearings to the public any time it wishes.

“The Legislature’s business is the public’s business and it should be performed in an open manner fully and always,” said Sen. Kate Kelly, D-Boise. “Not some of the time or even most of the time, but all of the time.”

Joined by other Senate Democrats at a Statehouse press conference, Kelly unveiled the party’s proposed addition to the Idaho Constitution that would prohibit closing committee meetings, reversing the high court’s decision in a 2003 Idaho Press Club suit against lawmakers.

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that the clause stating the “business of each house” must be conducted “openly, and not in secret session” was intended by framers to only apply to general floor sessions, not legislative committee meetings.

Democrats also proposed a resolution that both the Republican-led House and Senate should adopt a legislative rule that all committee meetings shall be open at all times to the public.

Across the aisle, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, labeled the minority party’s call for total openness merely election year grandstanding, contending that Democratic leaders had flip-flopped from a previous position that closure in some circumstances was warranted.

Davis pointed to a 2004 letter from Senate Minority Leader Sen. Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum, to Republican leaders about a decision to close a committee meeting to hear state lawyers discuss pending litigation over federal reserved water rights in the Snake River Basin.

“I believe there may be legitimate extraordinary circumstances under which it would be prudent for a committee of either house of the Legislature to be able to meet in executive session, closed to the public and press,” Stennett wrote in the Jan. 14, 2004, letter to Davis and other Republican leaders.

Asked Friday why his position in favor of limited closure had now changed to no closure under any circumstance, Stennett replied, “I’m following the lead of our caucus.”

Davis said Stennett had declined the Republican leadership’s invitations to co-sponsor the forthcoming limited closure rule.

“I assume it’s because they want to hold their press conference and pretend to the people they are for more open government than those other rascals,” said Davis. “But these are inconsistent statements with what they said through 2004.”

Republican leaders of the House and Senate met Thursday with Legislative Services Director Carl Bianchi to finalize the limited closure rule that is expected to be printed for floor consideration in both chambers next week.

If the GOP leadership’s new rule is brought straight to the floor, bypassing consideration by committee, it would require a two-thirds majority vote to go into effect. Republicans would not need Democrats’ support for the rule change, since they have a four-to-one advantage in both the House and Senate.

Davis said the GOP’s limited closure rule borrows from a proposal developed in November by the grass-roots nonpartisan group Common Interest.

A majority of the Eagle-based group’s 700 members statewide said legislative committees should only be closed for pending litigation, employee discipline and security matters.

“Our rule will in fact narrow the topics that can be covered (in closed sessions) and I think that is consistent with what Idahoans want and still give us some flexibility for extraordinary circumstances,” said Davis.

But Kelly said Democrats believe there is no reason why any deliberation of a lawmaking committee should be held in secret.

“You can think up all sorts of circumstances and say, ‘What if, what if, national security or personnel issues,’ but we are just not buying that,” she said. “We’re not buying that there’s any excuse to close meetings.”