A passion for secrecy afflicts the Idaho Legislature.
These lawmakers have a special contempt and distrust for the public that pays its salaries and accoutrements of office and provided votes to give them their civic celebrity.
Closed meetings are their particular fixation, despite closed meetings being expressly and unequivocally prohibited by the Idaho State Constitution. Even a second-grade grammar student could understand Section 12 of Article III:
"Secret Sessions Prohibited: The business of each house and of the committee of the whole shall be transacted openly and not in secret session."
Today, a committee in the state Senate is scheduled to meet to discuss how it can thumb its nose at the state Constititon and rationalize meetings behind closed doors to handle the public's business out of public sight.
Why does the Republican-controlled Legislature want to operate in secrecy, since decisions it makes eventually affects public conduct or the public's purse?
Quite simply, lawmakers don't want the public to hear what goes into crafting legislation--perhaps promises to lobbyists, how legislation could affect a lawmaker's son-in-law's business, callously trading votes, and, most probably, a basic fear of the public watching political dealmaking.
The Idaho Press Club, among others, is fighting this heavy-handed, public-be-damned arrogance in what so far has been a David-and-Goliath mismatch.
Perhaps Idaho lawmakers, and others who prefer secrecy to openness in government, believe taxpayers will buy into the 18th century dictum that "ignorance is bliss."
