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For decades New Hampshire has had a "Right to Know" law that sets ground rules for how elected local officials - selectmen, city councilors, school board members - can discuss public business. With some exceptions - for example when discussing personnel matters - these people must discuss city issues on which they will vote only in public meetings.
You will occasionally see someone taking a couple of local officials to court, claiming that they had a private telephone or person-to-person conversation about a pending vote. Right to Know laws generally make that illegal. (Often it is a newspaper going to court: they are the strongest advocates of Right to Know.)
I was thinking about these laws in the context of the elaborate veil dances being performed in Washington. Senators and Congressmen, in my opinion, clearly consult privately with each other on controversial issues to see who has to "bell the cat" this time. Once the vote count is clear some Senators get to cast votes that will please their constituents - knowing that the measure will fail anyway. I believe this is playing out now as the Senate endorses Mukasey this week; I believe it regularly plays out in war funding legislation.
Right to Know laws would make these private consultations illegal. Trading votes - "I'll support S-CHIP if you support the new highway in my district" would still be perfectly legal, but the deals would have to be cut in public and appear in the Congressional Record.
But we don't do that. We subject the public officials who control the smallest budgets and have the least authority to the greatest scrutiny. Once we get to Washington or even Concord, they can pull the veil and conduct business away from public view.
That is at the very least counter-intuitive.
I know the old saw about not wanting to see sausages or laws being made. But I feel a whole lot safer if someone not working for the meat processor inspects those sausage plants.
