Horse sense: Lawmakers schedules welcome

Publication: Billings (Montana) Gazette

Charles S. Johnson
October 1, 2007

HELENA - Why should Montana's elected officials make their daily appointment schedules public?

A better question is this: why shouldn't they?

It's certainly in the spirit of the open-government ideals expressed in the 1972 Montana Constitution.

Montanans have every right to know who comes a-calling on their elected officials and who gains access to their inner sanctums.

There are two different ways for elected officials to do it.

The first method is for them to release their daily, weekly or monthly schedules to news reporters. Montana governors have done this since 1981, and it helps us decide what to cover. The schedules have been released on a not-for-publication basis in part for security reasons.

After Ted Schwinden was elected governor in 1980 and before taking office, he met with statehouse reporters. We asked if he would make public his daily schedule, which had not been done previously. Schwinden readily agreed.

Relationships had deteriorated badly between reporters and Schwinden's predecessor, Gov. Thomas L. Judge. During the last few years of his governorship, Judge logged thousands of miles as a world traveler in what were billed as trade missions.

The frequency of these trips - and a few Judge misadventures - provided plenty of fodder for reporters. It got to the point where Judge's staffers wouldn't even tell us whether the governor was in the office or where he was, much less what he was doing and what individuals he was meeting with.

Schwinden set the new standard for Montana governors by providing daily schedules to the media. He also allowed reporters to attend any meeting on the schedule - unless the people he was meeting with objected.

That policy, while a great improvement, had one big flaw. Any meetings we thought would be particularly newsworthy were always closed. Railroad and utility presidents, for example, invariably preferred private meetings with the governor.

This policy has evolved over the years under Govs. Stan Stephens, Marc Racicot and Judy Martz. They have gone along with Schwinden's policy, tweaking it here and there.

Now, Gov. Brian Schweitzer has taken it several steps further. He not only makes his daily schedule available to reporters, but he allows them to attend any meeting in his office. The door is always open.

That should be the model for future governors, and for that matter, other state and local elected officials.

The second and new way for elected officials to let any Montanan know about with whom they are meeting is to post their schedules on the Internet. That's what our three federal elected officials have done, to their credit.

Sen. Jon Tester was the first Montana elected official to do it. Following up on a 2006 campaign pledge, Tester began posting his schedule online shortly after taking office in January.

In June, Rep. Denny Rehberg started putting his daily schedules in the Internet. Finally. last month, Sen. Max Baucus followed suit. Rehberg and Baucus' decisions came after lots of pressure from some Montana bloggers, who deserve credit for holding their feet to the fire.

Montana has the nation's first congressional delegation in which all members post their schedules. The Sunlight Foundation, a Washington, D.C., group pressing others members of Congress to do the same, praised the Montana delegation, saying in a blog on its Web site: "Congratulations, this is a great day for Montana - and for transparency."

Amen.

The three members of Congress post their schedules for the previous day, not the same day. That's fine. At least they're doing it, and any Montanan with an Internet connection can check them out.

Last week, Secretary of State Brad Johnson became Montana's first state elected official in Montana to put his schedule on his Web site. Good for him.

Last week, my colleague Jennifer McKee and I called staffers for three other state elected officials, Attorney General Mike McGrath, Auditor John Morrison and Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch. All agreed to fax or e-mail to us their bosses' daily or weekly schedules.

None talked about posting them on the Internet, but they should, just as Schweitzer should, so anyone can see them. With a little encouragement from Montanans, they might.

So might the mayors and county commissioners across communities. Ask them why they won't make their schedules public.

The greater the transparency, the better it is for Montana, its citizens and good government.

The Sunlight Foundation Web site - www.sunlightfoundation.com - quotes Louis Brandeis, who put it best in 1914, two years before his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."