Advocate to Jindal: If you’re gonna go, go all out!

Today’s Advocate Editorial weighs in on transparency bills in the Louisiana legislature. It asks Governor Jindal to support HB1100, the broader of the two measures under consideration. It starts out with a carrot…

Jindal’s administration, to its credit, has endorsed the idea of scaling back exclusions for most of those separate agencies, many of which were created after the original state public records law was enacted.

We commend the governor for supporting access to public documents generated by these state agencies.

Then, it picks up a stick…

The apparent rationale for limiting public access to documents in the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and the state Military Department is concern about compromising sensitive security issues such as terrorist threats. But state homeland security officials also deal with matters such as hurricane preparedness, a subject which, especially in post-Katrina Louisiana, should be open to broad public review.
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We would argue that the present exemptions from public scrutiny for the office of Louisiana’s governor hold Louisiana back, keeping our state at the bottom of national rankings for access to records held by the Governor’s Office.

Sunshine Review Blog to LA policymakers: Let the Sunshine in!