DeFuniak Springs City Councilman Kermit Wright really, really, really doesn’t like Florida’s open-government, or sunshine, laws. And he doesn’t mind saying so. “The sunshine law is a communist plot straight out of Stalin,” he told the Daily News’ Tom McLaughlin the other day. “I don’t like it or anything that restricts free speech. It’s against everything I stand for.”
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The House GOP met behind closed doors Tuesday to discuss their strategy regarding a possible expansion of Medicaid. The move has raised the ire of the Democrats and open government advocates, but it seems there’s very little that can be done.
House Speaker Steve Crisafulli (R-Merritt Island) says the House Republican caucus met Tuesday morning to discuss the history of LIP, or low income pool funding.
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Read More… from Florida Open Government Takes A Hit But It Seems Little Can Be Done
A Florida federal judge on Tuesday turned back the Miccosukee Tribe’s bid for public records on a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney whom the tribe has accused of fraud, finding no fault in the DOJ’s decision to neither confirm nor deny the existence of the requested documents.
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Read More… from Fla. Tribe Rebuffed In FOIA Suit Targeting Ex-DOJ Atty
Transparency is inconvenient. It’s inconvenient for the reporter who’s trying to report the news and it’s inconvenient for the government that attempts to hide information.
“It is not unique for federal officials to go to great lengths to get around having to turn over documents or respond,” Sharyl Attkisson said during a keynote address last week at the University of Florida’s public information conference, “Breaking Down Walls: The Fight for Open Government.”
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Read More… from Journalists Fight for Open Government in The Face Of Secrecy
Florida's Government in the Sunshine Law is getting a little cloudy from three dozen bills that, if passed, would create exceptions ranging from not disclosing finalists for top state university and college jobs to exempting addresses and other information on all former and active members of the military.
For average citizens, it means less information on a wide range of issues to which they have had access for at least five decades. That also means less opportunity to have a say in issues or decisions being made that affect them.
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They routinely attract little public attention or news coverage. Yet last week's meeting of aides to the governor and Cabinet illustrates the importance of Florida's public meetings law. Only by requiring that the public's business be conducted in public can Floridians know what elected officials are up to and assess the potential impact.
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Read More… from Editorial: A lesson in open government in Florida
For now, the closest thing to an investigation into Gov. Rick Scott's attempted purge of state agency leaders is a lawsuit. Floridians should be grateful for the litigation.
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Read More… from Lawsuit can keep Florida the Sunshine state of government
The First Amendment Foundation is pleased to announce it will award George Gabel of Holland & Knight its 2014 Pete Weitzel/Friend of the First Amendment Award.
“George Gabel is always there to stand up in court on behalf of the Sunshine laws and the First Amendment. George has been our legal champion for many years, as we worked to pry open public meetings, liberate public records and ensure the court system is open to the public,” said The Florida Times-Union Editor Frank Denton in his nomination letter.
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On Tuesday, Jeb Bush, “in the spirit of transparency,” released a mass of emails sent to him during his time as Florida governor.
Many of the emails are the stuff of public record, and “would have surfaced anyway due to sunshine laws and nosy journalists,” as The Christian Science Monitor put it.
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