By Taylor Smith,
SCPA Attorney
Transparency.
I use this word every time I am in a meeting with a South Carolina Senator or House member here in Columbia. I can’t avoid it.
When lobbying on behalf of SCPA, these legislators will nod their heads when I mention that transparency is vital to democracy. They agree that if the people who decide who leads this country cannot know how their money is being spent by such leaders, the democracy is in trouble. In places where democracy has failed, the start typically begins with the people believing their leaders are no longer listening and thus are no longer responsive to their concerns.
The South Carolina legislators I have talked to are right that transparency in our government must be maintained. The problem is that they don’t understand the distance between our current system and one that resembles true transparency.
This is National Sunshine Week, and an appropriate time to look at these issues.
More than a generation ago, in the 1970s, through the leadership of then House Member Jean Hoefer Toal (who later become the Palmetto State’s first female chief justice), the legislature was forced to reckon with the secrecy in government around the state. They understood there was a chasm between the current state of affairs and true transparency and that something had to be done. The legislature passed, and the governor signed the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Among other things, the Act imposes certain minimum duties on the custodians of public documents regarding the release of those documents to the people of this state.
It wasn’t as if before the Act no citizen could request information from the government. Many citizens did request information but they were denied access or ignored altogether.
So now, every day in this state a public official must tackle whether to release certain records, or redact certain information from public documents, or decide whether a vote should first be taken in open session or in a restaurant before the meeting. The outcome of these decisions are felt by the people of this state even if they are not aware. The power of the people to make their government responsive will ebb and flow with each decision.
But citizens and journalists alike have failed to inform their leaders about the ramifications of these decisions. Too often the official will decide against disclosure of the record or of the information in the public document and nothing is then done about it.
If you made a request under the FOIA and transparency was not provided, hire a lawyer and sue the public agency. If the government balks at providing information on how the people’s money is being spent, report on it to social media, your family, your friends and your legislator.
This reporting will remind people of the importance of transparency, the power of the people generally and the usefulness of open records laws like FOIA.
It will also make my job lobbying for transparency easier. Instead of nodding at the general principle that transparency is important, the legislator will understand how far away we are from true transparency and will support greater reforms in government openness.
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Taylor Smith is an attorney and lobbyist for the S.C. Press Association.