Senate Bill 95 makes virtual meetings a permanent option without restrictions.
Providing an online option to attend public government meetings during an emergency may be reasonable, so long as the “emergency” is well defined and severely limited in duration. However, allowing elected bodies to indefinitely hold virtual meetings and essentially hide from their constituents undermines the foundation of open self-governance. Passage of this bill would enable elected officials to become permanently unaccountable to the public in violation of the NH Constitution.
NH Const. Pt. 1, Art. 8. [Accountability of Magistrates and Officers; Public’s Right to Know.] All power residing originally in, and being derived from, the people, all the magistrates and officers of government are their substitutes and agents, and at all times accountable to them. Government, therefore, should be open, accessible, accountable and responsive. To that end, the public’s right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted. The public also has a right to an orderly, lawful, and accountable government.
Virtual meetings enable secret government, where elected officials are remote and unresponsive, and the proceedings are closed and inaccessible.
At a Virtual Meeting the public:
- is totally isolated and can lose connection to the meeting at any time;
- can see only a series of intermittent video, images, and statements;
- can be muted/censored without any public notice as they wait on invisible lines for their turn to voice their concerns;
- cannot see body language, which is a critical component of human communication;
- cannot see what is going on outside video frames: coercion and undue influence can be easily concealed;
- cannot build relationships, interact, or network with elected officials or with each other;
In the worst case, deep fake technology can and will be used to conjure up completely imaginary participants and/or participant behavior. The technology already exists, and we have no way of knowing how often it has been deployed.
Virtual meetings enable secret government, allowing the chair to control what is said and not said. Whoever controls the dialogue, controls the outcome. For an example of how badly a Virtual Meeting can go wrong, view this 7 minute video clip of the recent NH GOP Annual Meeting:
There were no apologies for the failure to recognize members asking for a “point of order,” let alone those “moving to adjourn,” which is non debatable. If you’re never recognized to speak in a Virtual Meeting, the chair can trample your rights which should be protected under the Rules of Order. There was no order at this meeting. Members complained that they were “muted” during voice votes yet the elections were never ruled invalid.
Virtual Meetings have been very instructive in demonstrating to the public just who is willing to abuse power.
Public Official Censors Public Comment in Online Meeting to Control the Optics
These problems are not fixable, they are inescapable features of virtual government.
Gov. Sununu has signed 83 Emergency Orders over the past year. Of these, Emergency Order #12 enabling unrestricted Virtual Meetings is by far the most dangerous. It effectively eliminates the public’s voice in legislative matters at school board meetings, town meetings, public hearings, and floor sessions at the State capital.
Seeing your elected officials in person is far more illuminating than listening to the very limited controlled dialogue of an online virtual meeting.
Elected officials at the local level are already able to dial into a government meeting with reasonable cause as to why they were unable to attend in person. The reasons for their absence are recorded in the meeting minutes. That’s not onerous. It ensures that elected officials are accountable to the public.
There is no public benefit to reducing “overcrowding” in hearing rooms. Many times a larger rooms can be found and used. In any case, allow members of the public, who want to watch from home, to do so. But, do not restrict the right of the people to attend public government meetings in person.
Virtual meetings for business are generally cooperative with all members working together. Virtual meetings for politics are adversarial, not cooperative. It’s about winning at any cost and, for many officials, by any means.
Our government meetings must be “open, accessible, accountable and responsive,” or they’re a sham. It’s unconstitutional to block the People’s access to “open, accessible, accountable and responsive” government through Virtual Meetings.
If an elected official is not willing to assume the risks associated with serving the public, he or she should step down.
