Brown Act turns 50

The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.

From the Ralph M. Brown (Open Meetings) Act of l953

IRONICALLY, SAN Francisco, with its history of the Abe Ruef and the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. scandals and secrecy, has been the major mover in initiating and promoting landmark open-government legislation.

In l952 reporter Mike Harris did a nine-part series for the San Francisco Chronicle that led to the Ralph M. Brown Act being passed the following year and the state's first open-meetings law. Shortly afterward came the California Public Records Act, which opened up government records. Both laws became riddled with loopholes over the years. So the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Bay Guardian initiated a key reform: the new and improved Brown Act in l993, coauthored by then-state senator Quentin Kopp and then-assemblymember John Burton. Then came the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance (l993), the first local law of its kind in the country. It extended open-government laws well beyond what the state required and created a Sunshine Ordinance Task Force to hear open-government complaints and enforce sunshine laws. When the folks at city hall punched loopholes in the Sunshine Ordinance, the Bay Guardian and the SPJ helped initiate another first: a sunshine initiative that produced a much improved Sunshine Ordinance.

The Brown Act turns 50 this year, and Burton (now state senate president pro tem) has given the public and the press a new cause to rally around: the campaign to enshrine the first open-government protections in the state constitution. Supporting his bill, SCA, is probably the best way to celebrate the golden anniversary of a landmark law.
(For more information go to www.cnpa.com/Leg/GA/sunshine.htm.)