Sunshine Law Update Lagging
With no lawmaker appointed to head panel, it's unlikely to meet deadline

Monday, 10/02/06

By ERIK SCHELZIG
Associated Press

Efforts to strengthen the state's open government laws could be delayed a year because legislative leaders have not yet made their appointments to head up a special study committee.

Under legislation passed in May, the 18-member study committee is tasked with formulating new open government proposals by Dec. 1.

But no lawmaker has yet been appointed to head up the committee, and the bill's original sponsor, House Judiciary Chairman Joe Fowlkes, said it's unlikely that the work will be completed in time.

The study committee was the result of a compromise forced by county and city officials who opposed the first significant proposal to change the state's Sunshine in Government Act since it was created in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.

Open government advocates had hoped updated open meetings laws would have a better chance of passing in the wake of last year's Tennessee Waltz corruption scandal.

"I'm surprised that the committee has not been appointed," said Fowlkes, a Cornersville Democrat who is retiring this year.

Burney Durham, chief of staff for House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, said the legislative members are expected to be appointed this week, but that might not be soon enough to meet the deadline.

"I'm afraid it's too late for them to accomplish their work," Fowlkes said.

That could make it likely that the study committee's mandate will be extended by another year — with the effect of making any proposed legislation pushed back to 2008.

Durham suggested that the Dec. 1 deadline might be extended, and that the committee's work could still be completed by the time it is scheduled to present its findings to the legislature in February.

Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and a former Tennessean editor, said that either way, the committee's schedule will be compressed.

The delay "certainly makes it tougher," Gibson said. "The concern is that they're not going to take that comprehensive look at the problem."

The bill calls on the study committee to look at all open government issues — regarding both open meetings and open records. That stands in contrast to the more narrowly focused open meetings bill that failed to pass during the session.

Under the original bill, city councils and county commissions could have been hit with a $50 fine and attorneys' fees for knowingly violating open meetings rules and could have been forced to pay all legal fees.

The proposal did not seek to ban all closed meetings, though it sought to impose a procedure for shutting the doors, including a public session to explain which exemption to the open meeting law is being invoked.

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