The public's right to know. But not right now.

 

On the same day the Wyoming House gave final approval to two bills that will provide more access to public documents and meetings for Wyoming citizens, the representatives took their business behind closed doors. In an unusual move, everyone present in the House of Representatives, Republicans and Democrats, left the House floor and crowded into a meeting room in the Capitol for one-half hour to discuss the pros and cons of the conference report on Senate File 57 and decide how they would vote.

Once they adjourned their private meeting on March 8 and returned to the House floor, the chairman of the House Education Committee called for a vote before anyone else had a chance to speak, ensuring no discussion or explanation for the public of what their representatives were thinking.  The vote was 38-18 (with four members excused) to approve the final compromise version of the bill.

Floor discussions of conference committee reports are very informative for the public to understand the proposal and to hear questions, concerns and responses. The debate is recorded so people can listen to it on their computers later. But the House wanted none of that on this momentous and controversial bill, which will affect every public school and school district and student in Wyoming for decades to come. The Wyoming Accountability in Education Act lays out a framework of data-gathering to track the achievement, growth and readiness for every student and school in the state.   

The stage was set by a rancorous conference committee meeting of three senators and three representatives. They worked out a compromise on the Senate and House versions of Senate File 57 – Education Accountability. Legislators, an advisory group of educators, legislative staff and an excellent consultant had labored a year on the accountability plan, but there remained differences of opinion on the manner of testing that should be used.

Those differences came out in the bills approved separately by the House and Senate, and they emerged in the conference committee meeting. One member, a freshman senator, was particularly aggressive, even abrasive, and seemed to focus on scoring points for the Senate. At the end of six hours of negotiation, all six seemed satisfied with the compromise, and all six signed the report.

Perhaps “buyer’s remorse” set in for the House conference committee members, as they reviewed the tough negotiations and their concessions. Something prompted the call for a secret House meeting to discuss the deal.

Twenty-four hours before adjournment of the 2012 legislative session, the House could have rejected the compromise report and tried for a new conference committee meeting and a new compromise and a new vote in the House and Senate on the compromise. The stakes were high. Was there enough time for another conference committee? Would rejection of the report kill the proposal? This is drama and brinksmanship in the State Capitol, for those who follow such things.

What to do, what to do...  It’s fine if House members want to close discussions of political strategizing versus the Senate – but not when they are weighing the final form of an extensive accountability system for Wyoming school children. When House leadership called everyone to caucus in Room 302, there was no noticeable protest. They returned to their seats 30 minutes later and the conference report was moved and the final vote was called immediately.

It was an unfortunate disregard for the people of Wyoming and their ability to follow public business conducted in their name.

During debate on the public documents bill (Senate File 25) and the open meetings bill (SF27), someone always spoke about the difficulty of insisting on “sunshine” laws for other governmental entities while the Legislature exempted itself from those same laws. However, when the topic comes up, many legislators will cite their need to work freely without public scrutiny and public record. The same reason is given for resisting universal roll-call votes.

The Wyoming Legislature has exempted itself from public document and open meeting laws. To their credit, legislators have voluntarily done a pretty good job to give public notice for meetings and to make legislative documents available to the public.

Changes made by the 2012 Legislature to our public documents and open meetings laws were good ones. They better define public meetings, require notice for special meetings and require certain responses to document requests.

But the Legislature itself remains exempt. The events of March 8 are a reminder that making openness in government voluntary is problematic, and it can leave the public right out of public affairs.

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Leave Your Gun and Your Rude Behavior Outside

Decorum n. 1. Propriety and good taste in behavior, dress, etc. 2. An act or requirement of polite behavior (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4^th ed.)

 

The rough and tumble world of advocacy elsewhere burst onto the Wyoming legislative scene last winter. In preparing for the 2012 session, lawmakers are instituting rules they hope will preserve our friendly open citizen Legislature but regulate some of the most objectionable behavior.

Legislator and public behavior could get rowdy in territorial and early statehood days, but in recent decades a generally accepted courtesy and deference has been the norm. Legislators in Wyoming are unused to intimidation outside the caucus meetings,and the deliberative and mannered world of the Wyoming State House was disrupted in 2011. Some legislators, caught off guard, succumbed to the aggressive methods.  

Legislators have their own rules for decorum. Now for the 2012 session, we have rules to guide decorous behavior by the public in the galleries, committee rooms and lobbies of the State Capitol. Some rules are common sense and courtesy and only the most obnoxious behavior will be affected. Others could impinge on normal, reasonable behavior, so we rely on the good judgment of the enforcers.

For Instance:

One of the most objectionable behaviors of 2011was the use of still and video cameras -- flourished in committee meetings, positioned to obstruct traffic and extended over the gallery glass to record documents on legislators’ desks. No one can hold recording equipment (or anything else) over the glass barrier in the gallery, and otherwise recording is allowed if it is not obstructive or disruptive. People who want to record committee meetings should check first with the chairman.

People in the galleries must be quiet and still and refrain from trying to communicate “visually or audibly” with anyone on the Senate or House floor. This is in response to the dramatic gesticulating in the galleries last session, which was distracting to legislators and also to the clerks as they counted heads for the “division” votes.

In the lobbies, demonstrations, signs, banners, placards and other display materials are prohibited. “Individuals in the lobby may not react to debate or voting on the floor in any way to signal approval or disapproval of floor action.” Now, that’s a tough one. A raised eyebrow, smile or discreet fist bump are okay, I’m sure. But when will the door man (they are always men) intervene?

I hope legislators remember they always can exert their own will on people who get too pushy. They can declare their position and then stand by it at election time. We cannot insulate them from public importuning or the implied threat of “we’re watching you, so be careful.” Committee chairmen have always been able to enforce their own rules to preserve decorum.

On the other hand, it’s kind of nice to say Wyoming folks know rude behavior when they see it and we don’t have to put up with it. The Legislative Service Office reviewed rules of other legislative bodies, and the Wyoming rules of decorum represent a middle ground, according to Sen. Tony Ross.

I guess these rules will give the House and Senate staff the authority to squelch the most disruptive behavior. We rely on the judgment of staff to know when behavior crosses that line from proper comment to prohibited disruption and contumely.

Teaching a Culture That Does Not Tolerate Abuse

 

A recent survey of Wyoming school children reveals more than half of middle-schoolers say they’ve been bullied at school, and a fifth of high school students say they’ve been bullied in the past year.

Everyone decries this problem, and there are programs to reform the bully and help the victims resist the abuse or deal with the mental and physical injuries. We seem to overlook a strategy that could do as much – maybe even more – and that focuses on all the rest of the children. That is to teach our children to speak up when someone is being bullied, to say picking on a classmate is wrong.

Recall the Edmund Burke quotation about the victory of evil when good people do nothing. This is something like that. A bully shouldn’t get the reinforcement of admiration or terror from his or her peers. There may be many motivations to bully, but at least take away the power over others, and the victims know they are not alone. We should be teaching our children from an early age to speak up when they see someone being abused.

It’s not okay to look the other way or remain silent while someone is hammering someone else, in person, via social media, physically, verbally, whatever. That is a lesson we sure could use today by adults in cases of all kinds of abuse. How many people at Penn State looked the other way while young boys were abused by a popular assistant football coach? I heard a professional hockey player on the news say he was sexually abused by a youth coach for several years, and he wondered why so many adults surely suspected something was going on but did nothing.

We don’t want adult bystanders?  Let’s teach the lesson to our children right now, from an early age. This is not just a school project. I know we are asking a lot of them to speak out against bullying. I’m talking about changing the culture of the school yard, so speaking up is the norm, not the courageous act of a solitary child. But let’s promote the idea of the brave individual, too.   

Last year, columnist Dan Savage started the “It Gets Better Project” to tell gay teenagers whose lives are made miserable by bullies that their lives improve later on. I propose that the culture of American high schools is to treat all classmates with tolerance. Now. Not later.

I attended 11^th grade in a Montgomery, Ala., high school in 1966, just two years after it was forced to admit African-American students. Things were quiet but tense. My father was in the Air Force, and we all knew we would be leaving in one year. It was easy to let the racial slurs in classroom conversations go by. I regret to this day that I didn’t say something – not because I would have changed anything, but my silence was tacit approval.

In Wyoming, we have the ethos of minding our own business, which is good. But we have the equally important Wyoming value of helping our neighbors.

Of course, part of this culture of speaking up involves teaching our children to know the difference between teasing and flat-out bullying and not to overreact to every comment. But kids should learn when they themselves or anyone else is crossing the line from teasing into cruelty. (Think about the cases of hazing that turn fatal.) Kids and adults who are bullied can turn around and be mean to someone else. Instead of focusing on labeling students “bully” and “victim,” help them all create an environment of mutual respect and concern when someone is being abused.

We should know abuse when we see it – as children and as adults – and say, “Stop.”  

Legislative races should be crucible, not a cakewalk

I just read a column describing this long, sometimes brutal battle for the GOP presidential nomination, saying it’s good for the candidates and good for the electorate. It’s like a crucible that fires strong candidates, burns up weak ones and reveals all to the public.

And that’s what is sadly missing from too many legislative races in Wyoming. Each election, scores of races are decided in a primary or don’t need deciding at all, because only one person files for a seat. Each election, all 60 House seats and half the Senate seats, 15, are on the ballot. We electors are the losers in having such paltry choices.

No one is served by an uncontested or lop-sided election. Not the voters, obviously. But the candidates lose out, as well. The candidate who gets a free or near-free pass misses out on that crucible, untested by the fire and scrutiny of debate. The candidate doesn’t have to deal with an opponent’s challenges and hard questioning and may not even have to take a stand on tough issues. (Why alienate any voters if you don’t have to, you know what I mean?)

But the worst part comes when the unchallenged candidates take their seats in the Legislature, filled with a moral certitude and rectitude that makes for a stiff, uncompromising neck. In their eyes, they come with an unquestioned mandate, and they aren’t inclined to listen to and understand other viewpoints. Some come with a mission and a set of blinders, and they go home after 40 days just as clueless as when they arrived. Constituents rarely hear from them between elections, and the lawmakers would prefer not to be bothered by constituents, either.

Usually, legislators learn after a couple of terms that the unyielding, categorical style of representation doesn’t work. (Usually, but not always.)

Some legislators understand the importance of understanding right from the first day, including some who ran without a challenge. But, when you have a challenge, you have to listen.

Why do we have so many unchallenged races? One reason is the hard work of diligent legislative service. It’s a huge commitment of time away from work and family during the sessions and in the interim. Not many people can swing that. There’s also the cost of running – about $8,000 for a House race and $12,000 for a Senate race – and devoting a summer of knocking on doors. Another reason, I suspect, is the general lack of citizen awareness of what the Legislature is and the significance of service. That’s the fault of an uninformed electorate that substitutes yard signs for real information-gathering.

Some people are inclined to blame our single-member legislative districts, which encourage head-to-head competition and have residency requirements. Back before the 1992 redistricting, Laramie County was one at-large district. Imagine dozens of people running in a pack for the county’s  nine House and five Senate seats. It was hard to know much more than the names of candidates in that race. I don’t remember vigorous debates.

Single-member districts make for more accountable representation of a defined constituent area. But we need candidates who will oppose each other in primaries and general elections and challenge each other to be excellent candidates and then excellent legislators. We need a crucible, not a cakewalk. I’m not sure how we get that. It’s a shame that we don’t.

Sometimes it's about the herd

I drove my daughter to Minneapolis and spent two days helping her get settled for the start of law school at the University of Minnesota. This required much driving on the interstate highways in and around the city, which carry a lot of traffic all day long. Despite the heavy traffic, it is easy to merge, change lanes and keep track of everyone.

 The distinctive feature of Minneapolis traffic is the mentality of motorists to watch out for each other and accommodate each other. I call it the “cooperative model” of working together so everyone gets where they need to go quickly, safely – efficiently. Compare this to the “competitive model” employed by the motorists on the Interstates around and through Denver, where the overriding mentality is “every man for himself.”

 What they have on Minneapolis roads is a sense of community, of people whose welfare is tied together, recognizing that helping someone else benefits me. And that is what is sadly missing not just on Denver highways but in some of the large debates in Wyoming and our country, where law- and policy-making become competitive sports to score points. This characterizes most of the discussion of health care reform. If you’ve read The Healing of America by T.R. Reid, you know that the United States has a remarkably inefficient model of providing health care – costing twice as much as other developed countries to achieve a ranking of 37^th best health care in the world.

 I had a recent conversation with a very nice individual for whom the domestic issues of health care and unemployment were solved by deciding it was someone else’s problem. You assign responsibility, and job done! It’s their fault (or their family’s fault) for being out of work or being poor or being uninsured, so end of discussion.

 The thing is that we all benefit when people get health care, when they stay healthy, when people are educated, when people are productive citizens who buy goods and services and who pay taxes. (And by the way, we all end up paying for all the health care consumed in our country – including care for people who are uninsured or underinsured –only we do it in the most inefficient and costly method possible.)

 It is this lack of community (“not my problem”) that permits the thoughtless individual to toss a cigarette butt out the car window or talk loudly to his companion at the movies or speed through an already-turned-red light. These are relatively minor annoyances. Others are serious and are lightly illegal, for instance driving while drunk. 

 In fact, people who argue for individual responsibility in order to deny community interest are just arguing for self-indulgence. They so conveniently ignore the individual’s responsibility to the community. That is not the admirable defiance of the maverick. That is irresponsible disregard for the herd. 

 I argue for enlightened self-interest and a sense of community. Take a lesson from Minneapolis highways. Our welfare is tied together in health care, education and many other ways. Let’s respond responsibly.