Story helps explain public bodies' dislike of open-gov't laws

Wonder why Illinois governments dislike sunshine laws so much? Look no further than Sunday’s newspaper.

The special interest groups representing Illinois’ 7,000 units of government really, really don’t like laws like the Freedom of Information Act and the Open Meetings Act that mandate open government. As I wrote about in August, their taxpayer-funded lobbyists are hard at work on bills aimed at curtailing your right to know.

But some government groups dislike sunshine laws more than others.

Take, for example, the Illinois Association of School Boards. Not only do its lobbyists back a slew of bills aimed at curtailing FOIA, but the group also had a lawmaker draft and carry a proposed bill that would have made FOIA worse than it was before its post-Blagojevich overhaul, and that’s saying a lot.

Senate Bill 2203 in its original form and subsequent versions would have doubled public bodies’ response time for FOIA requests to 10 days, eliminated the requirement that they provide the first 50 black-and-white copies free, and allowed them to charge a $25-an-hour search fee. It also proposed eliminating the requirement that public bodies offer a detailed explanation for denying requests, and exempting applications for people seeking to fill vacancies to public office – again, paid for by your taxes – from public view .

(The bill looks like it will die in committee, but some of its provisions, such as putting a limit on repeat or “vexatious” FOIA requesters, were enacted through another bill.)

So why does the IASB want to eviscerate those pesky sunshine laws? Maybe so people don’t find out that IASB employees can pay into and draw from the underfunded Teachers’ Retirement System, despite the fact that they’re not in front of classrooms teaching children.

We’re all just better off not knowing, right? Just shut up and keep paying your taxes. Nothing to see here.

Senior Reporter Kevin Craver can be reached at kcraver@shawmedia.com.