Open government records are important to the people of Utah. It is therefore important to populate the panel that decides open records disputes with a representative sample of individuals that will provide the best balance of opinion.
The Legislature saw that need when it established the State Records Committee.
But when Gov. Gary Herbert appointed former state legislator Holly Richardson to the committee as a "citizen" member, he tilted the balance. As a political insider and former supporter of H.B. 477 -- the infamous government secrecy bill from last year -- Richardson doesn't fit the profile. If confirmed by the Senate today, as expected, she will be seen by some as stacking the deck in favor of lawmakers (read secrecy).
The law creating the State Records Committee calls for seven members:
• The state auditor or auditor's designee;
• The director of the Division of State History or the director's designee;
• The governor or the governor's designee;
• One elected official representing political subdivisions;
• One individual representing the news media; and
• One citizen member.
The clear purpose of having a regular citizen sit on the open records panel seems obvious: bring common sense do decision making by including the perspective of a person who doesn't have, and has not had, a vested interest in creating, shielding or exposing public records.
Richardson is not a regular citizen on many levels, and some fear she is likely to bring a legislator's perspective to the process. In other words, she may not be neutral. She is not currently in the Legislature, of course, and so her defenders will say that she qualifies now as a "citizen."
This misses the point. It's not about current conflicts, but conflicts in mindset. The reason the Legislature specified a "citizen member" is that it saw that person as being different from a servant in government, such as an elected official. It envisioned someone from the outside.
Richardson is outside now, but she was inside not so long ago. She may do a fine job if confirmed, but that doesn't mean she fits the definition of a "citizen" in the sense meant by the law.
If the governor had appointed, say, a retired Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who taught journalism at Brigham Young University, he might be justly criticized for stacking the panel in favor of the media. Likewise, with Richardson, he appears to stack the deck in favor of legislators or government generally.
The Senate would do well today to reject Richardson's appointment and ask the governor to seek a person who better fits the definition of "citizen." This is not to cast aspersions on Richardson's integrity; it's simply a way of ensuring that the records committee has a genuinely neutral, unbiased voice from the ranks of ordinary citizens.
There was a reason the Legislature set up this important panel the way it did. And that intent should be carefully followed.
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