District of Columbia Council members voted unanimously Dec. 21 to replace one of the nation’s most toothless open-meeting laws with another similarly weak measure that fails to provide an acceptable level of government transparency to local residents in the nation’s capital. The old law required that only council meetings where “official action” — such as a vote — was taken be open to the public. The new one, inappropriately dubbed the “Open Government is Good Government Act of 2010,” continues to exclude the public from council committee meetings where most of the real legislating occurs and before votes are taken. It’s extremely disappointing that Mayor-elect Vincent Gray voted against more transparency after spending the last four years blasting the Fenty administration for its secrecy. It’s similarly disgusting that incoming Council Chairman Kwame Brown is already backing away from his campaign promises to support measures designed to bring more transparency to local governance. We do not intend to allow either of them to forget their solemn pledges to post the city’s checkbook online so that everybody can see where District tax dollars are going.
In the end, none of the 13 council members were willing to subject themselves and their colleagues to the same open-meeting standards required of more than 160 other public bodies ranging from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to the Zoning Commission. In response to a question by Gray, government operations committee Chairwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, readily admitted that the council could exempt itself from compliance. In voting for this charade, council members made a mockery of the public’s right to know what their elected representatives are doing.
