It’s Sunshine Week in America, a “national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.” Open government in Wisconsin includes open meetings, surely, and Wisconsin law has clear provisions for open meetings. See, WOML, Wisconsin Statutes, 19.81-19.98.
Over at the Wisconsin State Journal, Mary Spicuzza has a story about how Veterans Affairs board members likely violated Wisconsin law by developing a secret meeting strategy before an official public meeting. The story, entitled, E-mails: Firing of Wis. Vets Secretary was Planned, describes a covert effort to script and stage a meeting, before the public meeting ever took place:
At least a week before Veterans Affairs Secretary John Scocos was fired, the department’s board members had secretly come up with a strategy to dismiss and replace him, complete with a “PR plan” and “talking points” about the decision, e-mails show.
And Gov. Jim Doyle’s office reportedly had advised a board member to openly criticize Scocos to “ensure public exposure prior to the actual removal vote,” according to the e-mails, which were obtained through a state open records request.
The board voted on Nov. 24 to fire Scocos and replace him with Ken Black, a department administrator. The governor’s office and board members have repeatedly said the board acted independently of Doyle, but the e- mails raise questions about whether that’s the case – and if the state’s open meetings law was violated.
Scocos has sued over his firing, which came about two months after he returned from a deployment in Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserve, alleging his dismissal violated a federal law that protects returning service members. Scocos, a Republican appointee, also alleges the Democratic governor and his appointees fired him for political reasons.
The state Department of Justice did not respond to specific questions about the legality of the secret discussion among board members. But the DOJ cautions public officials that agreeing on a course of action before a meeting could violate the state’s open meetings law, and specifically warns about possible violations via e-mail.
In the online version of the State Journal story, there’s a link to the emails that discuss in detail how to script the meeting, along a fixed and decided plan.
A normal person can see, easily, the wrong in this — a public meeting is more than a puppet show, more than dumb theater that simply reflects what insiders have scripted and planned secretly, away from public view. An insider can see it, too — that’s why they didn’t simply announce that they’d scripted the meeting. Now I know, and you know, that there are some insiders who’d say that this is simply a game, and this is how the game’s played.
Representative government has never been a game, official actions have never been sport, and those who think so are offensively wrong. They debase the American way of life, often cheapening it for no better reason than their desire to feel important, influential, or to achieve partisan success.
Here one sees a case of how a lawful, open process is subverted through email. There are other ways to achieve even greater subversion, as even a conniving person can attempt to circumvent the law through concealing some emails, or even more duplicitously, scheme only through phone calls or furtive conversations away from the public record. The latter method dares a person: do you think we discussed nothing about this, or can you guess that we schemed in ways you’ll be unable to confirm?
If a request for information receives a reply that there are no written records, about a subject certain to produce some discussion, one can reliably conclude that (1) records were withheld, or (2) conversations were covertly some discussion, one can reliably conclude that (1) records were withheld, or (2) conversations were covertly held in ways outside normal record-producing methods. In this way, officials would prove too clever by half (to use an English expression): concealing records to avoid embarrassment, but only at the price of the suspicious & dubious declaration that there was no normal or conventional communication. dubious declaration that there was no normal or conventional communication.
These covert plans are not, and should never be, a subterfuge against genuine open, public meetings. America is no small and vulgar place, and for not a moment should one endure conditions in which we are made small and vulgar through official misuse of authority. One would prefer lawful and honest official conduct, and so preferring it, one commits to advocacy, to help bring it about. It shouldn’t be this way; it’s worse to endure it servilely. About advocacy, one finds oneself committed and confirmed, and in the effort, one affirms one’s convictions as a true believer in America’s promise.