Fighting state secrecy

ONE OF THE most important pieces of open-government legislation in half a century goes before a state senate committee May 21, and it needs a strong show of public support.

SCA 7, introduced by Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco), would for the first time put the public's right to monitor the actions of government into the state constitution. The bill, backed by the California First Amendment Coalition and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, is designed to address years of legal erosion of the public's right to know (see "State Secrets," 3/13/02). Already it has run into roadblocks – some well-meaning privacy rights advocates threatened to oppose the bill, but supporters have carefully worked in amendments that address most of the real concerns (the language now makes clear, for example, that the medical records of state employees aren't public). Yet the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties still refuse to support the bill.