WA Sunshine Committee recommends first public records changes

Finalists for top government jobs should be revealed to taxpayers, and the public should get more information about probes into child deaths, Washington's Sunshine Committee said Tuesday.

Those are the first two recommendations from the committee, which was created by the Legislature to suggest improvements in state open government laws.

In the coming months, the Sunshine Committee also hopes to tackle a broad swath of exemptions for agricultural business data and a unique public records exemption reserved for the Legislature.

When Washington's "sunshine" laws were approved by voters in 1972, there were only 10 exemptions allowing government records to be kept secret. Since then, the list has ballooned to more than 300.

The first recommendation approved Tuesday asks the Legislature to reveal the applications of finalists for top management jobs in state, county or local agencies. The panel said some reference information could remain secret, but the applications should be unveiled before the hiring decision is made.

Lawmakers actually voted to reveal such information in 1987, but then-Gov. Booth Gardner vetoed the provision, saying public exposure would chase away top candidates.

Committee member Ramsey Ramerman, a private attorney who specializes in open-government laws, echoed Gardner's 1987 veto on Tuesday. He also said revealing the finalists before the final hiring decision is made could lead to political pressure over the choice.

"Almost no other private industry would hire this way," Ramerman said.

But one committee member who voted for the change _ state Open Government Ombudsman Tim Ford _ said outside pressure isn't necessarily bad.

"I think political pressure can be a good thing," Ford said. "What we're talking about ... is public scrutiny."

The recommendation was approved on a 5-2 vote. Not all of the 13 appointed committee members were present, and two abstained from voting.

Left unmentioned was how the Legislature should treat applications for volunteer boards and commissions, such as the Sunshine Committee.

Gov. Chris Gregoire was criticized last year when she initially denied The Associated Press' request to see the applications of everyone who had been turned down for spots on the appointed Sunshine Committee. Gregoire later released the records, but said she would have kept them secret had the applicants objected.

Ford and fellow committee member John Hughes, editor and publisher of The Daily World newspaper of Aberdeen, said the committee could still take up the issue by examining whether those volunteer positions even qualify as public employment.

Committee members also unanimously approved the recommendation dealing with child mortality reviews.

State law currently prevents government officials from releasing health agency records about individual cases of child deaths. Aggregate data can be published in reports and studies.

The Sunshine Committee found that the exemptions were "broader than necessary" to achieve the goals of protecting confidential medical records and encouraging witnesses to participate in government reviews of child deaths.

By narrowly tailoring exemptions to fit those goals _ instead of the current broad exemption _ the Legislature could make more information available to the public while still protecting confidentiality, the committee said.

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