In what could be a blow to public access to Maine’s State House proceedings, Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon, is questioning whether legislative committee meetings should continue to be recorded and archived.
Streamed online, the public meetings of the Legislature and its standing committees are available to anyone with an Internet connection. The sessions are also digitally recorded and are made available upon request to those who ask for them. Also streamed, recorded and archived are the proceedings of the state House and Senate.
While Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, the state’s open meetings and public records law, requires the Legislature and almost all elected bodies in Maine to conduct the vast majority of their business in public, there are no requirements those proceedings be broadcast or digitally recorded. Continue…
—————————