Charging residents for government transparency (see HB1002) increasingly sounds like a bribe to me. Yes, we created these documents at your expense, but if you want to see them, you’ll need to slip us a little cash. It might be a lot of money; we’ll let you know.
The bill passed, was reconsidered, then did not pass but did not fail. It has been rushed back to the Judiciary Committee for emergency resuscitation. The goal of its sponsors [(Prime) Kuttab (R), Michael Cahill (D), Ball (R), Maggiore (D), Ankarberg (R), DeSimone (R), Dunn (R), Nelson (R), Bill Boyd (R), Edwards (R), Grassie (D), Carson (R), Gannon (R), Watters (D), Lang (R), Avard (R)], all of whom have put the state before the people (IMO), is to rearrange the words until it passes the NH House.
The buzz suggests easy passage in the Senate (like sh!t through a goose), and Gov. Sununu signing it seems likely, so this bilking citizens is a wholly endorsed project of the Republican Party.
They are making public document access and, therefore, government accountability a potential hardship.
Ua Nemhnainn, commenting on an earlier article about HB1002, observed that Article 8 of the NH constitution clearly states that “the public’s right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted.”
The only remaining argument against my … points is possibly over the word ‘unreasonable’ in Art. 8. If a fee would impact even a single citizen from accessing government records, it is unreasonable. Overall, this bill would have a chilling effect on low-income and ordinary citizens even making requests, as they would have no way to know ahead of time if they would suddenly be charged $25 or $300 for a request.
This is a point we’ve also made, but Ian Underwood added a new dimension to the conversation – as we expected he would – by pointing out that the system we have without the need for bribes (my words, not his) has things backward from go.
The problem with the current RTK setup is that you have to already know there’s a problem before you can start looking into it. If you want to find the problems, you have to be able to look at everything.
Actual transparency would require towns, municipalities, school districts, and agencies to make all documents that could be subject to an RTK available online as soon as they have been created. That would include all official emails, all RFPs, all bills, all correspondence… everything.
That’s what a Right to Know (RTK) law would require. What we have now is a Right to Ask (RTA) law, which is a very different kind of thing.
We have a “right to ask” but not a right to know, to which the HB1002 sponsors and supporting members of the legislature would like to add a fee, fine, tax, or, as I’ve now suggested, a bribe.
Yes, you can ask, but before you can know, we’ll need some as-yet-to-be-determined sum of money upon whose payment we may then provide the documents we think you requested (if they get it wrong, you’ll likely have to grease their palms again).
All we’re missing is a muscly gold-chain-adorned leisure suit-wearing guy named Vinnie the fixer and a shadowy alley reeking of garbage and piss.
