This editorial will appear in Monday’s print edition.

Here is some news to cheer supporters of open government: The feds made considerable progress last year in paring what had been a chronic backlog of public disclosure requests.

Consider it an upside – perhaps the only upside – of having a dwindling number of watchdogs covering federal agencies. As fewer reporters file new Freedom of Information Act requests , federal workers have more time to process old ones.

But as of last fall, 77,377 requests were still pending, according to a new report from OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of more than 70 open-government advocates. The oldest request – a petition to the Department of Defense – dated from 1992.

The coalition’s Secrecy Report Card also found a decline of new national security secrets. But the reflex to hide information remains strong: Fewer pages were declassified governmentwide in 2009.

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This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

Is it any wonder that city and county officials clamor for relief from open meetings and records laws when they see their counterparts in state government behave as they do?

State officials profess a belief in public disclosure. They’re just not sure it always applies to them.

Lawmakers in particular hold themselves apart from the state’s sunshine laws. They caucus in secret for any reason and insist that their correspondence is somehow constitutionally protected from public dissemination.

They also apparently reserve the right to skip public process in the interests of expediency.

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This editorial will appear in Thursday’s print edition.

A curious thing is happening in the state Legislature. It seems lawmakers believe they can pick off public disclosure supporters by granting some of them special privileges to information.

Twice now, legislators have answered concerns about denying access to public records by establishing a new class of citizens: members of the news media.

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This editorial will appear in Wednesday’s print edition.

State Rep. Lynn Kessler’s bill to seal information about people who work in the criminal justice system got absolutely nowhere last legislative session.

This year, it’s sailing through the House as lawmakers scramble to assist law enforcement in the wake of six cop killings.

The only problem: House Bill 1317 wouldn’t do anything to protect police officers from killers. It would, however, protect law enforcement agencies from public accountability.

The legislation is billed as a way to keep gangs and organized crime from compiling databases of law enforcement personnel. Even if that were happening – sponsors and supporters can’t cite any cases – HB 1317 would do nothing to prevent it.

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Here’s what we’re working on for tomorrow:

A bill to exempt law enforcement officers’ birthdates and photos from public disclosure is gathering speed in the Legislature. It is an incongruous response to the shootings of six police officers that will only serve to weaken the public trust by eroding accountability.

The merger of McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis is part of a healthy national move to consolidate military installations and push inter-service cooperation.

The “Seniors for Sale” investigation by the Seattle Times this week helps explain why open government advocates get nervous when public agencies start agitating for the ability to crack down on “habitual” requesters.

Seattle Times reporter Michael Berens used thousands of public records to document how the state’s adult family homes leave many seniors vulnerable to abuse and neglect. It’s an important story, one that could have never been told without Berens filing lots and lots of public records requests. From the Times:

(Seattle Times reporter Michael J.) Berens also filed nearly 50 state public-records requests to

…

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This editorial will appear in Tuesday’s print edition.

A common thread among several attempts to reform government and public schools this year is a sense that such efforts will succeed only if allowed to operate in the dark.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Lawmakers who think they can improve the public’s business by short-circuiting public disclosure will inevitably be disappointed.

Secrecy is largely antithetical to well-run public institutions – not because those institutions are run by people with nefarious aims but because working in an echo chamber never produces the best results.

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This editorial will appear in Wednesday’s print edition.

Lawmakers, under cover of helping the state archives, are seeking to shift the costs of illegal government secrecy to whistleblowers.

Identical bills in the House and Senate propose to redirect fines now paid to private citizens who prove public agencies erred in withholding records. The fines would go instead to the state archives account.

Requesters could plead with the court to reimburse their attorney fees and costs. But judges would not be bound to award those expenses as they are now.

The bills are certainly not the only pieces of legislation aimed at appeasing local governments’ clamor for relief from the burden of doing the public’s business in public.

But what Rep. Dennis Flannigan of Tacoma and Darlene Fairley of Lake Forest Park have dreamed up in House Bill 2910 and Senate Bill 6408 is especially egregious. Their legislation would eliminate much of the incentive agencies have to comply with the state’s open records law.

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