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Our View
No way!
“Democracies die behind closed doors.”
—Judge Damon J. Keith,
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
While many of Virginia’s elected representatives
and most state leaders support legislation
that strengthens the principles of open government, one bill sponsored by House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) could be the undoing of Virginia’s continually evolving, 35-year-old Freedom of Information Act.
House Bill 1357 would amend Section 2.2-3707 of the Code of Virginia. The substance of the bill is that, “Public access to any meeting of the General Assembly or a portion thereof shall be governed by rules established by the Joint Rules Committee.”
Griffith came up with the bill in response to Attorney General Jerry Kilgore’s advisory opinion on opening partisan caucus meetings to the public. While acknowledging that caucuses themselves are not “public bodies,” Kilgore stated that a meeting of three or more legislators must be open to the public “if it is called for the purpose of discussing expected votes on matters pending before the General Assembly.”
Griffith has tried to convince his colleagues that the purpose of his bill is merely to permit private caucuses and other unannounced, informal meetings, and would not apply to floor sessions, committee meetings or other routine General Assembly activities.
But as written, HB 1357 goes much further than that, exempting the entire General Assembly, at any time, from the open meetings requirements. The Joint Rules Committee—of which Griffith is a member—would determine which meetings would be open to the public and which would not.
We already have concerns about voice votes in committees, where the number of votes for and against a piece of legislation—like impact fees, or strengthening local growth controls—are reported, but how each member voted is not. Closing such a meeting to the public, for example, would make it impossible to find out.
This can’t be allowed to happen. HB 1357 is currently under study by the House Rules Committee. It should go no further.
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