Print edition: 
State legislators need to refresh their understanding of the Kansas Open Meetings Act, which has been abused this year both under and beyond the Capitol dome.
Two points discussed in the 2012 Legislator Briefing Book seem especially pertinent:
• “Social gatherings are not subject to the open-meeting law as long as there is no discussion of the business of the public bo dy (emphasis ours).
• “Subject to reasonable rules, cameras and recording devices must be allowed at open meetings” – though some legislative committee rules provide otherwise.
Lawmakers and their host, Gov. Sam Brownback, appear to have trampled on the first rule in January, when Republicans who constituted majorities of legislative committees were invited to seven dinners at the governor’s mansion. The administration has called them “social gatherings,” but some lawmakers who attended have said the topics discussed with the governor and his staff included taxes, the state budget and water policy.
Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor is investigating the dinners at the request of the Kansas Press Association and the Topeka Capital-Journal, which has noted that the dinners seem to conflict with a 1979 opinion by then-Attorney General Robert Stephan stating that “discussion of the affairs and business of the body is all that is necessary to invoke the provisions of the act.”
Now an attorney in Overland Park, Stephan told the Capital-Journal last week that the open-meetings law would apply not to what the governor said but to what committee members said. “The investigator, whether it’s the D.A. or attorney general, needs to arrive at a conclusion of whether or not they discussed an issue,” Stephan said. “And if they did, they’ve got problems.”
As for the briefing book’s point about cameras and recording devices: House Federal and State Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Brunk, R-Wichita, announced before the start of a hearing last week that he would enforce a ban on video cameras, flash photography and recording devices. On another day, a Brunk staffer told Wichita Eagle reporter Brent Wistrom that it was against committee rules to record audio, though such recording traditionally has not been challenged in legislative committees. At least two onlookers were told during meetings of Brunk’s committee to stop taking photographs or video.
Brunk told the Capital-Journal that journalists had been able to record meetings as long as doing so wasn’t intrusive, but that members of the public who wanted to digitally document the meetings generally needed permission in advance. As the Capital-Journal put it, Brunk made the distinction between journalists and citizens “to inhibit unexpected disruptions and mischief by political operatives trying to glean awkward moments from deliberations that might be posted to YouTube or some other Internet distribution vehicle.”
But it’s hard to see how most of the compact, wireless recording devices in use today could disrupt a meeting, and fear of political mischief is a bad reason to bar recording of proceedings in Kansans’ Statehouse.
Nobody gets arrested for breaking the Kansas Open Meetings Act, which can carry a $500 fine for each violation – and then only if action is brought by the state attorney general or a district attorney. But lawmakers should be faithful to both the spirit and the letter of the open-meetings law, and be exploring new ways to give Kansans the opportunity to see and hear their government work.
For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman
