Open Illinois.org

Unfortunately, Illinois took two steps back in the transparency movement last week during veto session. The first occurred in a move to deny Illinois citizens the right to ask for government employee performance evaluations through a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request. Story on that here.

The second occurred when the Senate failed to override Gov. Quinn’s changes to the Sunshine Commission Act (HB4836). Here’s a good recap on this from the State Journal Register’s Doug Finke:

* There was a bill introduced nearly a year ago that went by the name “The Sunshine Commission Act.” Sunshine, transparency (and forensic audit for that matter) are words currently in vogue in state government. They impart a purity of purpose that lawmakers usually don’t achieve by, you know, just doing their jobs.

The bill came out of the House Republican caucus and had about three-dozen co-sponsors signed onto it. It called for the four legislative leaders to appoint a panel consisting of four lawmakers and four members of the public. The panel was to “conduct a thorough review of the relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness of each state executive branch program.” In other words, look at the programs run by state agencies under the governor and see if they work and should be continued.

Sounds good, right? You’d get sort of an outsider’s perspective on ways to fix government. Lawmakers thought so, too. The bill passed the House 114-0 and the Senate 54-0. It was sent to Quinn.

Quinn decided to make it better, however. Rather than sign the bill, he rewrote it to give himself four appointees on the panel. He also changed the qualifications needed by the public members selected to serve on the panel. He said the original version “represents only a limited number of corporate special interests. The people of our state deserve better.”

Maybe, but now the people will be getting nothing.

When the governor changes a bill like that, both the House and Senate either have to accept the changes or reject them. If both chambers don’t vote to do the same thing, the bill goes pffft.

The House voted to reject Quinn’s changes, believing it would be difficult to get an objective evaluation of the governor’s operations with the governor’s people on the panel. The Senate tried to do the same. But when the vote was taken, Republicans mostly voted to dump the Quinn changes (like the House did), and the Democrats mostly voted to keep them. Bottom line, the sunshine commission is dead for now.

Another valuable reminder that too much sunshine (in life or in government) can cause problems.

* While we’re on the subject, the best line during the sunshine bill debate came from Sen. DALE RIGHTER, R-Mattoon.

“We need a see-through government,” Righter said, urging his colleagues to save the bill by scrapping Quinn’s changes.

It’s a great line because, about 12 hours earlier, Righter voted with 47 other senators to shield the performance evaluations of public employees from the state’s open records laws.

Guess you want see-through government, but with certain parts blacked out for family viewing.

The votes on the performance evaluations bill had many scratching their heads. Only three senators, Murphy, Duffy and McCarter, voted no. Take a look at the voting roster and see for yourself.

The whole point of transparency in government is to provide a tool for citizens to hold their elected officials more accountable. Despite these setbacks, we are eager for next year and look forward to working towards bringing more transparency to Illinois. Be sure to keep an eye out, and if you want to get involved and help bring more transparency to your local or state government, check out our volunteer Liberty Leaders program and contact us!