We are appalled by the Washington state House of Representatives' latest plan to keep records from the public, this time by allowing legislators to immediately delete a number of their emails and auto-delete many more after 30 days.

Read our statement at:
https://bit.ly/4mA75Fn

Louis Brandeis said this in an article published in 1913, before he was named to the U.S. Supreme Court. His essay was about the concentration of wealth and power among bankers, and how they used that power to quietly tilt business in their favor. Brandeis saw public disclosure as an antidote to self-dealing and exploitation by the powerful.

Sunlight is equally effective against corruption and incompetence in government. Open government is good government. That’s why we fight for it.

The WA state Legislature's outside law firm is arguing in court that lawmakers have a broad "privilege" -- a *special* right -- to withhold their records from the public.

We're fighting this secrecy claim in court.

Most of our state legislators want to hide their records from you. Don't let them.

washcog.org

On this day in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson reluctantly signed into law the federal Freedom of Information Act. LBJ normally relished signing ceremonies. Not this time. Also, the word “reluctantly” fails to capture LBJ’s candid opinions about FOIA, some of which were reportedly unprintable.

For the story about how FOIA became law, check out this 2016 story by the National Security Archive. https://bit.ly/404qzsO

In Longview WA, an Open Public Meetings Act lawsuit against four city council members plods on, leaving the citizen plaintiffs wondering whether the council defendants and their attorneys are slow-walking the case.

By Andre Stepankowsky via the Lower Columbia Currents blog.
https://bit.ly/3Tm9abq

What does the WA state Legislature's claimed secrecy privilege look like? It looks like this.

That's why we're in court, fighting our state Legislature's wide-ranging claim of a "legislative privilege" to withhold records from the public.