Open government at 50: Principle isn’t practice

By Chris Powell

Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act, enacted in 1975, turns 50 this year, the legacy of Gov. Ella T. Grasso, who vigorously advocated it, and the Watergate scandal of the previous two years, which proclaimed the danger of secret power.

The FOI law made Connecticut a leader in accountability in government. The law created a commission to enforce it and enabled ordinary citizens to argue their own complaints at hearings without having to hire a lawyer, a triumph of democracy. Most commissioners, chosen by the governor and the General Assembly, believed in open government.

---

Connecticut’s sanctimony cities show we could use Elon Musk

Tong’s bluster on inflation scapegoats supermarkets

Is anyone really governor? And the solution is parents

---

But Grasso was probably both the state’s first and last governor to believe in open government. Indeed, the history of the FOI law since Grasso’s time has been one of gradual erosion as elected officials and special interests found that openness and accountability can get in their way and sought exemptions from the law.

The future was foretold just a few years after the law was enacted when the state legislator who presented the legislation to the House of Representatives and so was nicknamed “Mister Sunshine” was appointed town attorney for Vernon. “Mister Sunshine” refused the Journal Inquirer’s request to inspect his invoices to the town. The mayor supported his refusal, they lost at the FOI Commission, they were compelled to disclose the invoices, and their party was defeated at the next town election because of the issue.

Nine years after the law’s enactment Connecticut’s retreat from open government accelerated. In a case from Somers the Journal Inquirer had won a ruling from the FOI Commission that teacher job performance evaluations were public records that had to be disclosed like all other government employee evaluations. Within mere weeks the teacher unions induced the General Assembly to enact an exemption from the law just for them. The exemption was approved by the House of Representatives 145-3 and unanimously by the Senate. Grasso had died in office four years earlier and her lieutenant governor, having succeeded her, signed the bill reflexively.

Teachers remain the only government employees in Connecticut whose performance evaluations are exempt from disclosure. It’s not for any good reason. Most parents would like to be able to see the evaluations of their children’s teachers. The teachers got the exemption because they don’t want to be accountable for their work and are numerous and politically active, and because few legislators dare to articulate the public interest against them. That is, teachers are special — as in special interest — and while freedom of information is great in principle, practice is often something else.

So much for “public” education.

These days state government and municipal governments often defeat requests for information just by stalling them and appealing FOI commission decisions in court. Long delay can make information worthless. The commission lacks the nerve to fine lawbreakers. 

For several years now the big push for another exemption to the FOI law has come from state employee groups that don’t want addresses of government employees to be public. Even the lowliest clerk in the Agriculture Department is supposed to be in danger because his address is public. The legislature has granted address exemptions for some state employees whose work can be controversial, but the unions want everyone exempted. 

It doesn’t matter that the internet has obliterated privacy for residential addresses and that the blanket exemption the unions want will provide no practical protection. State employees want formal acknowledgment that they are special — as in special interest.

Yet the compelling reason for keeping addresses of government employees public — that accountability is possible only if an address is available to confirm the identity of an employee — is on flaming display in a current controversy.

A few weeks ago the state auditors reported that the chancellor of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, Terrence Cheng, whose annual compensation is almost $500,000, was given a housing allowance of $21,000 on the understanding he would move to Connecticut. He took the money but kept living in New York. If his home address had been secret Cheng’s fraud would never have been exposed.

---

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)

-END-