Columbus Dispatch. December 6, 2022.
Editorial: Ethics Commission’s ruling is a blow to open government
Mississippi has the appearance of a representative government.
Legislators — 52 senators and 122 representatives — from all parts of the state are chosen to enact legislation during a three-month session that begins each January. We have a governor chosen by the vote of all Mississippians. Judges are chosen by popular vote in what are, on the surface at least, nonpartisan elections.
Yet for all the trappings of representative government, it is a farce, an illusion.
Our state is and always has been governed by a few powerful men and perhaps the most powerful of them all is the person who sits in the House Speaker’s seat. Right now, that man is Philip Gunn of Clinton. There is virtually no legislation passed into law that does not have his consent.
It’s a rigged game long before the legislature convenes in January.
Does this appear to be a cynical view?
Not after Friday when the Mississippi Ethics Commission, the body entrusted with making sure public business is conducted openly, ruled that the legislature is not subject to the state’s open meetings law.
For almost 50 years, the Ethics Commission has held local governments to the requirements of the 1975 Open Meetings Act.
Its existence gives the public — and media — an avenue to challenge elected officials who obfuscate public business.
Repeatedly, the Ethics Commission has ruled that local governments cannot meet secretly to discuss or approve policy matters and that any time a quorum is established that those meetings must be held publicly.
For those who may still suffer from the delusion of a representative state government, Friday’s ruling is a shocker.
The Ethics Commission ruling was a response to a Open Meetings Act complaint filed by the Mississippi Free Press, which argued that it was unlawfully denied entry to a meeting by the House Republican Caucus. Of the 122-member House, 77 are Republicans. By meeting, the Republican Caucus established a quorum — 61 members — and its meeting should have been open to the public and the media.
House Republicans, most notably Gunn, argued the caucus was not a meeting of the House legislature, but a party meeting. But the nature of what goes on in the caucus, as reported by Mississippi Today through interviews with caucus members, demonstrates that those meetings are where the script for the upcoming legislative session is written. What happens in the House chamber is little more than reading the lines. Caucus members who have questions about the legislative agenda established by Gunn are directed to speak privately to committee chairmen, Gunn’s top lieutenants.
Ethics Commission director Tom Hood recommended the commission rule in favor of the Mississippi Free Press, writing, “It is essential to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government and to the maintenance of a democratic society that public business undertaken by a quorum of the House of Representatives be performed in an open and public manner. The formation and determination of public policy by a quorum of the House is public business and must be conducted at open meetings.”
The Commission, whose members are appointed by the Governor, Lt. Governor, House Speaker and Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court, rejected Hood’s recommendation by a 5-3 vote.
Those voting in favor of allowing these secret meetings where legislation is crafted were Chairman Ben Stone, Vice Chairman Sean Milner, Stephen Burrow, Erin Lane and Samuel Kelly.
Secretary Ron Crowe, Robert Waites and Maxwell Luter voted in favor of Hood’s open government recommendation.
The commission has yet to provide a written report on its decision, but the mental gymnastics needed to justify the decision figures to be a doozy.
For the sake of brevity, the commission could just issue a three-word statement that cuts to the heart of the matter:
“Business as usual.”
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Greenwood Commonwealth. December 4, 2022.
Editorial: Strange Vote On Open Meetings
The Mississippi Ethics Commission made a curious decision last week, voting 5-3 to give the state Legislature in general, and the House of Representatives in particular, significant leeway from the Open Meetings Act.
One thing’s for sure: All the county supervisors and municipal boards that have been called on the carpet over the years by the Ethics Commission for open meetings violations must wonder why the Legislature gets such a break.
The case dates back to February, when a reporter for the Mississippi Free Press was not allowed to attend a meeting of the House Republican Caucus.
The Free Press contended that, as Republicans have a 75-member majority in the House, and as legislation before the House would be discussed, the meeting qualified as a quorum of the Legislature and therefore should be open.
House Republicans, led by Speaker Philip Gunn, had two responses. One, bizarrely, was that the House is not a public body as defined in the Open Meetings Act, and the separation of powers doctrine prevents an executive branch agency from telling the Legislature how to operate. The second response was that the House Republican Caucus is not a public body.
A recommendation to the Ethics Commission from the agency’s executive director agreed that the Republican caucus is not a public body. But it said the House does qualify as a public body under the Open Meetings Act.
The executive director, Tom Hood, noted that the Open Meetings Act specifically exempts legislative committees from the law’s requirements. If the House is not a public body, he reasoned, why would its committees be exempt?
Hood’s recommendation also noted that the Mississippi Supreme Court has said, “Whenever the Open Meetings Act is unclear, the question should be decided in favor of openness.”
A majority of the Ethics Commission rejected the key part of Hood’s analysis. One of the five members who opposed Hood’s recommendation said the Open Meetings Act is ambiguous and does not include a specific reference to the Legislature. Another said the Legislature should be part of the Open Meetings Act, but that wasn’t the issue in this case. The majority is expected to explain its reasoning further in the coming days.
Setting aside all the semantics, it’s just hard for any advocate of open government to understand how a gathering of three county supervisors is considered an open meeting — but a gathering of 75 House members is not.
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