Face the State

A Face The State Editorial

Updated: Senate minority staff tell Face The State Sen. Bill Cadman has removed his name from HB 1332 as of Monday (the online version of the bill has yet to reflect this change.) The editorial below was current with information available at press time early Tuesday morning.

A bill set to be heard Thursday in a state House committee would significantly limit the number and scope of documents within the legislative process subject to disclosure to the public.

HB 1332, sponsored by Rep. Rosemary Marshall, D-Denver, which would expand the definition of legislative "work product" to any documents that make any mention of legislation being drafted by the General Assembly's attorneys.

FTS Political Cartoon

In a house editorial Monday, the Rocky Mountain News called the legislation "alien to the spirit of the open records law."

By the Rocky's logic - and ours - such a change would shield large swaths of communiques and documents currently subject to disclosure under Colorado's open-records law.

Marshall sold the bill to its GOP co-sponsors, House minority leader Mike May, R-Parker, and Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, as a simple codification of a Denver District Court ruling issued in January. That case, Marshall v. Jones, (Jones serves as managing editor for Face The State) centered around whether documents containing legislative draft language, sent from a third party to the Governor's office, were subject to disclosure. The Court found the document in question - a memo from labor-union attorneys about a potential collective-bargaining agreement - could be kept secret. Marshall and Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, argued its disclosure would "chill" legislative debate. More likely, the memo's release would have been an embarrassing admission of the far extent to which Colorado's Democrats were willing to partner with big labor.

But Marshall's bill goes much further than she lets on, determining for the first time the "contents" of protected documents, and not just the physical draft bills and memos themselves, are shielded from public view under CORA. Now, even if a legislator knowingly discloses draft legislation to a third party who then passes it to a completely different branch of government, state law would shield it from view.

We do not disagree that legislators should be free to draft legislation with in-house attorneys and staff in order to craft quality legislation, without being compelled to release drafts along the way. But when a lawmaker knowingly releases that information to a third party who then shares it with government officials, it runs contrary to the spirit of open government to hide the documents in a feat of legal acrobatics.

The Rocky, The Denver Post, Pueblo Chieftain and the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel have all editorialized against Marshall and Ritter on their moves to shield their negotiations with labor unions from public view.

The Democrat majorities in both the state House and Senate have the votes to pass legislation such as this. There's no reason for the House minority leader and a respected Republican state senator to make their job easier. The majority leadership voted to spend tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money to win victory in the courts on this issue. Let them take the lead on making secrecy the official policy of state government.