2016 could be a major year for secrecy and limiting the public’s right to know under Georgia’s Gold Dome.
Lawmakers in the state House and Senate this session passed legislation curtailing public access to information on deals the state makes to attract new industry. Critics say the same bill, altered in the dead of night on one of the session's final days, would give athletic departments at public colleges such as the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech three months to respond to virtually all open records requests. They, like all other state agencies, currently have three days to respond.
Another measure still in play would, for the first time in 40-plus years, bar the public and press from attending disciplinary hearings for judges accused of misconduct.
Open government advocates bemoaned what has been a troubling year.
“While there always is a delicate balance between the public’s right to know and secrecy, these last few days at the Legislature have tilted the balance out of whack,” said Hollie Manheimer, the executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.
State Rep. Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, said he doesn't see a shift in thinking in the Legislature to less transparency.
“My stand has always been in the past to keep openness in government,” Willard said. “When I see things that don’t do that, I try to change them.”
Economic development, college sports
Many open government advocates were already concerned about the broadness of Senate Bill 323, a bill backed by three of Gov. Nathan Deal's Senate floor leaders that would expand an exemption to the state's public records law in the name of economic development.
The bill would allow any state agency to conceal documents about economic development projects involving business expansions of $25 million in investment or 50 jobs. After a deal is signed or negotiations are terminated, the records would become public.
The law currently gives this exemption solely to the state Department of Economic Development. Critics of the bill say it could potentially allow any arm of the state government to conceal activities that it claims will create jobs.
But this week, the House and Senate passed a new version with an amendment that also would give the University of Georgia Athletic Association and other athletic departments at state public colleges 90 days to respond to records requests.
Under the amendment, “salary information for non-clerical staff,” which would include coaches and executives, would be the only exception to the 90-day rule.
Manheimer said “this amendment — at the eleventh hour of the legislative session — is an affront to the purpose of Georgia’s Open Records Act, and all citizens should be disturbed.”
State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, a co-author of the amendment, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday that the bill would give departments who receive "a shocking amount" of records requests, particularly during recruiting periods, extra time to fulfill them.
A message left for the UGA Athletic Association was not immediately returned.
The bill would affect not only giants, such as UGA, but smaller athletic departments of schools such as Kennesaw State, Ehrhart said, and “level the playing field” with states such as Alabama.
The amendment to the bill comes just about a month after a story in the AJC detailed lavish spending by new UGA head football coach Kirby Smart in recruiting.
Ehrhart, a UGA grad, said athletic departments “don’t have the capacity” to handle the requests they currently receive, particularly as it relates to information about recruiting. The bill, he said, also will protect recruits’ personal information.
Manheimer said the measure goes too far.
“The amendment is so broadly written, it would make secret contract terms, letters of complaint or inquiry from the NCAA, plans for the expenditure of university and athletic association funds, and even more,” she said. “No other public agency in Georgia is given 90 days to conduct its business in secret.”
Veteran state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, said "rarely in discussions of economic deals and deal-making are the advocates in the deal interested in transparency."
“Advocates for the deal are interested in having the competitive edge and in finalizing the deal without outside critics weighing in,” she said.
Bills such as SB 323 end up being based on discussions that lean toward what will make the deal work, she said.
“(That) night was as bad as I’ve seen with bills being plopped on top of bills,” Oliver said, referring to Tuesday, Day 39 of the 40-day session.
Ehrhart’s amendment on the college programs was particularly concerning, she said.
“Few people knew what it did. It apparently had not been discussed in any committee, and nothing about it had been written in any filing for the world to see,” Oliver said.
Ehrhart characterized critics’ contention about what the bill does as arguing over “how many angels can we get to dance on the head of a pin.”
The bill is now headed to the governor’s desk.
Judges’ disciplinary hearings
Transparency became an issue last week when the Senate Ethics Committee tinkered with a bill by Willard, the House judiciary chairman, that would abolish the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the state’s watchdog over judges, and allow the Legislature to re-create it.
The Senate version tightened confidentiality around the JQC’s investigations of allegations of misconduct by judges. More significantly, for the first time in the JQC’s 40-plus years, it would bar the public and press from attending disciplinary hearings of the JQC, which can result in a judge being slapped with a reprimand or removed from office.
Willard has pledged to fight to ensure that, in the final version of House Bill 808, the enabling legislation, the JQC retains its current level of transparency.
Oliver said Wednesday that discussions on the JQC bill are “fast-moving, contentious and not over.”
“Wendell and I want to pull back on the secrecy provisions that the Senate was leaning toward,” she said.
A constitutional amendment asking voters to abolish the JQC and allow legislators to re-create it passed both the House and Senate on Tuesday and goes to the desk of the governor.
It says the Judicial Qualifications Commission is “to be open to the public in some manner.”
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