The Republican majority of the New Hampshire Legislature is on the verge of doing what Democrats do. Punish everyone for the alleged bad behavior of a few. Assuming the few are truly being cantankerous in their pursuit of public records. It is reminiscent of most, if not all, Left-Wing gun-grabbing legislation.
Those misbehaving few—assuming they were not driven to some extreme by the culture of government itself (as is increasingly common these days)—are leveraged as an excuse to impose a punishment on everyone. Red Fag Laws, waiting periods, magazine size limitations, location restrictions, special licensing requirements, ad the rest do not prevent gun violence. They create burdens meant to make exercising a right less appealing while the same government does less to protect them in the void it created.
If you have money and means, none of that concerns you. You can afford to jump through the hoops or buy your way around them.
HB1002 is no different. Adding a fee (tax, fine, levy) to access some documents will have several immediate effects. The folks who control access to the documents will inevitably find it increasingly difficult to fill even the most basic request below the fee threshold (probably at the behest of their superiors). People who cannot afford a fee will not ask for public documents. Local government will become less transparent and, over time, more brazen, unanswerable, and corrupt. (Nashua has done this despite the lack of a fee; guess how much worse that gets with one).
It also creates (or at least risks creating) a two-class system of accountability—a government that only ever answers to people who can afford to hold it to account—a class of individuals or groups who often stand to profit from this relationship and might want barriers to access to those details.
None of what I lay out may be what you intend—lord, I hope it is not—but it is that for which you may be remembered every time someone writes about how inaccessible local government has become. How people with means can open a door closed to them by bills like HB1002.
And if you think I am exaggerating, that this would never happen, or is unlikely, you have gotten too comfortable being in part of the government when you are elected to protect your constituents and their rights and interests from it.
Please vote no to HB1002. It is not your job to punish everyone for what may be the abuses of a few.
Blogified version of an email sent to the entire NH State Senate.
