The Tennessee legislature, which has spent an inordinate amount of time this session trying to close records and operate in secret, is at it again with a plan to make it more difficult to obtain public records.
Apparently it's too much trouble for government to spend more than an hour looking for records, so legislators feel it's only right to bill people to search for records they've already paid to have created.
The public also rightly assumes that government agencies will store their records in a method that makes them easily retrievable if for no other reason than it makes government operate more efficiently.
The new bill would also allow government to charge more than it actually costs to reproduce those records.
These two changes would make it quite simple for government to stall requests for public data and make it too expensive for citizens to get information about the government that is supposed to represent their interests.
Public officials aren't elected because we think they're swell people and we want to give them power and big 'ol pots of money that they can share with their friends. They're elected to provide services necessary for the public's well-being. Open government makes it possible to ensure that the public's interests are being served and when legislators seek to hide their actions, it's a clear admission that they are putting their interests before those who elected them.
Public officials that vote for closed government don't deserve our votes or our support. When election time comes around, we need to introduce them to an open door policy that puts them on the street where they belong.
-- Jim Grinstead
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