Abraham Lincoln's maxim that government is "of the people, by the people
and for the people" is increasingly treated as a quaint slogan by many
in government who prefer secrecy to openness.
Happily, therefore, we salute three Boise attorneys who have donated
their professional time to the thankless good cause of battering down
the closed doors of secrecy in government.
Attorneys Emil Berg, Joe Miller and Tony Park are the 2006 recipients of
the Max Dalton Open Government Award, named for the late Idaho milk
industry businessman whose open records lawsuit led to a landmark 1984
state Supreme Court ruling. The award is conferred by the Idaho
Newspaper Foundation.
Berg, Miller and Park have been fighting all the way to the state's
highest court to eliminate a gross example of statutory abuse by state
lawmakers in behalf of special interests.
Lawmakers simply made official information vanish from public records.
In 2004, the Republican-controlled Legislature bowed to the cattle
industry with a law blocking public access to Agriculture Department
records on dairy feedlot nutrients.
Outrageously, the law requires feedlot data be returned immediately to
dairies. Without access, public interest groups cannot measure whether
health standards are being met.
(It's worth noting Idaho ranks dead last among states requiring
disclosure of financial information about legislators, according to the
Wa****ngton watchdog group Center for Public Integrity.)
Although a final ruling has yet to be made in the feedlot records
lawsuit, the pro bono public service legal work of the honored lawyers
has cast a bright light on this indefensible contempt for access to the
public's business.
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