Born and raised in Detroit, Mich., I had not been long in the Land of Lincoln when, as an editor for Pioneer Press Newspapers, in DuPage County, I covered the 1968 Illinois Constitutional Convention. My newspapers supported the efforts of the convention and voters elected to make it law in 1970. In 1988, I opposed the referendum calling for another “Con-Con.” The 1970 document was good enough to last at least another 20 years (when voters would again be asked to vote up or down on another convention) I thought. And, until very recently, if asked, I’d have said the same thing about the “Con-Con” vote that will appear on our ballots Nov. 4.

But, lately, I have been thinking.

I have been thinking about how much we trust our governments – federal, state and local – to always do the right thing… as “We, the People,” see the right thing. And I have been thinking about how sadly disappointed “We, the People,” have been in that regard through the last eight years.

Sure, I’m talking about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but I am also talking about George Ryan and every little Tom, Dick and Harry in the General Assembly, on county boards and on city councils, who have taken their lead from our national leadership and decided that once they have been elected by the people, they don’t have to pay attention to the people again – until the next election.

Of course, we need changes in the federal government, but right now we have the opportunity to make some changes in Illinois, and let’s just hope a new administration and Congress in Washington, D.C. (not to mention the other 49 states) will follow our lead.

I have been a professional journalist for more than 40 years. I have literally watched my profession change with the times from handset metal type to digitized lithography… from fireside chats on the radio to red hot ‘blogging on my cell phone… from weekday evenings with John Cameron Swayze to Saturday nights with Tina Fey.

Throughout the decades the one thing that has not changed for practioners in every branch of journalism: The First Amendment is our creed – the public’s right to know is our guiding principle. In that regard, Illinois’ 1970 constitution gives to us Freedom of Speech with one hand, but comes up short in the other when it comes to the public’s right to know.

While Freedom of Speech is well delineated in the Illinois Bill of Rights, the only constitutional mention of a right to know is in the Finance Article, concerning records of the use of public funds.
But, you say, there are laws and there are statutes. Yes, there is the Freedom of Information Act and the Opens Meetings Act. And it has only been recently that it occurred to me – obvious wrongheadedness aside – the very basis of these laws is flawed.

(You can check it out yourself on the website of the Illinois Press Association [www.il-press.com], and click on the “WORSTY Awards,” the IPA’s annual list of the worst abuses of these two state laws.)

Yes, all our records are open – the government tells us – except the records that aren’t. And “We, the Government,” are the deciders. Yes, all meetings of public bodies are open to the public, but there are exceptions – far too many exceptions. And “We, the Government” again, are the deciders.

This is nothing new, of course. This is how it has always been. And in our naïveté, we have always believed the deciders were on our side… that “We, the Government,” and “We, the People,” were one in the same. If that ever was really true, I think we have learned in the last eight years that it is not true any longer. “We the People” and “We the Government” have become adversaries; we should be partners… and “We the People” should be the deciders.

In our laws today, the presumption is that government knows best… knows which records are public enough for the people to see, and which ones only the people in government may see. If the people don’t agree, than it is up to the people to prove the government is wrong – and to bear the cost of that proof.

That is wrong. The presumption of public access must be with the people. The right to public access should automatically come with every government document. To do otherwise is a restraint on free speech. If the government believes any given document should be kept from public view, then the government must that proof. Not the other way around.

As Barack Obama put it in an October, 2007, speech, we have lost the balance “between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in a democratic society.”

Open government must mean more than “We’ll tell you if you ask and if we feel like it.” With today’s Internet technology (which could never have been imagined by the delegates to our 1968 Constitutional Convention) government agency websites are capable of giving us information without our ever having to ask. Why aren’t they doing it?

Government openness must be constant and not subject to formal request and needless delay. The FOIA provision that requires agencies to reply within seven days to requests for information seems just on the surface. But if they don’t respond in seven days, according to the law, you may consider your request denied. “You’ve been ignored,” “We, the Government” is telling you.

“Go away. Don’t bother me.”

So too, the public right to open meetings.

In Section One of Illinois’ Open Meetings Act, “The General Assembly… declares that… the actions of public bodies be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.”

Yet, virtually the entire law is listing of more than two dozen exceptions to that lofty declaration, including the blanket exemption of the general Assembly itself “and committees or commissions thereof.”

This sort of a wink and a nod for our state government may have been good enough 20 years ago, but no longer. Our laws and statutes are being made by the same “We, the Government,” that “We, the People” can no longer trust to do the right thing.

Following nearly every election, the journalism community in Illinois must go begging, hat in hand, to a new Attorney General (final arbiter, by law, of the Open Meetings Act) hoping he or she is favorably disposed to a liberal interpretation of the law. As it happens, our current Attorney General Lisa Madigan has been one of the good guys, but putting the AG in this position is not fair to her or to the people she serves. This is no way to run an open government.

If a legislature can mandate that all meetings of public bodies be open to the people today, why not bar the public from all such meetings tomorrow? If they can tell us we have a right to all documents today, why not keep them all from us tomorrow? And, if the Attorney General is of your majority party, all the better.

Can’t happen here? I hope not. But after the last eight years I really can’t be sure. The public’s right to know must be protected at every level of government. Not just for journalists, but for everyone.

The only expedient way to do that is through major changes in the Preamble and the Bill of Rights of our state constitution. On Nov, 4 we have a chance to do so that we will not have again for another 20 years.

Lloyd H. Weston

All comments are moderated before being published. We will not edit your comments, but we also will not approve those that are abusive, off-topic, attack another poster or contain information we know to be libelous or false.

During peak weekday viewing times, most comments will be reviewed within six hours. For more detailed information, click here.

After submitting your comment, check below for a confirmation message.

• Your name:
• Enter text from image:
  

• Your comment:

* 300-character count. HTML formatting will not display.