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!

Louisiana government opens door to sunshine

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal campaigned on a promise to ease the way for greater government transparency. The LA legislature is currently considering two bills in support of that effort. From the Times-Picayune:

The administration is backing Senate Bill 629 by Sen. Mike Walsworth, R-West Monroe, which could come up for debate in the upper chamber in the coming days. Walsworth’s measure would seal records in the offices of the governor, the inspector general, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security, the state Military Department, work products related to industrial recruiting by the state Department of Economic Development, and any direct communication between the governor’s office and the affiliated agencies that now enjoy a seal themselves.

House Bill 1100 by Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, differs by narrowing the protection within the governor’s executive office to the governor, the chief of staff and the legal counsel.

I like transparency policy debate centered around the question of “how much” rather than “if”.