EDITOR'S NOTE: In June 2004 I began a new venture as managing editor of both Northfield News and Faribault Daily News. This column originally appeared in the Northfield News on April 15, 2006.
The relationship between the press and elected officials often is seen as adversarial and less than friendly. And that's probably a fair description considering that one of the responsibilities that most journalists take very seriously is serving as a watchdog of government. That means that collectively we scrutinize lawmakers at every level and have a feeding frenzy when a politician makes a mistake or simply when they are less than perfect. And we certainly don't tell enough about the good work, much of which occurs behind the scenes, that lawmakers do. But the reality is that even though lawmakers and the press spend much of their time sparring, ultimately when legislation that will impact the press comes before the Legislature or even Congress, even the press has to turn for assistance to those who are elected to represent them. Despite the power of the press, we still need advocates in elected positions to ensure that the freedoms we so fiercely guard remain intact. Just this week, state Rep. Ray Cox, R-Northfield, stood tall to represent our interests, and we believe the interests of the public, when he helped derail proposed legislation that would have allowed the University of Minnesota to keep secret the names of finalists for any future university president searches and the Minnesota State Colleges and University system to do the same searches for a new chancellor. Many may have read Publisher Louie Seesz's column about this issue last week, and you may remember that he took quite a stand against the legislation. You also can imagine that almost every other journalist in the state bristled at the idea that the Legislature would enact any legislation that would make state business secret. But when the legislation came to a vote Monday in during a House Higher Education Finance Committee hearing, Cox made the motion that stripped this poorly misguided legislation from the committee's omnibus bill. Cox was joined by three other Republicans and three DFLers to pass the motion to remove the secrecy provisions 7 to 3. It may not seem like a big deal to those who weren't following the story about this legislation, but it was. The secrecy provision was backed by Rep. Ron Abrams, R-Minnetonka, who is a heavyweight in the Republican caucus. For those that follow politics, they know that to buck a powerful member of your party like that takes some intestinal fortitude. I would like to think that whoever would have been representing our district and had been sitting in Cox's seat also would have voted to honor the ideals of freedom of the press and open government. But this time it happened to be a member of the majority party who was voting to oppose a fellow party leader, and he happened to be a Republican. I hope that any other elected official in the same situation with the tables turned would have done the same thing. Some also may think this column is a political favor in return, some free praise for an elected official who faces re-election in November. It's not. As a matter of fact, Cox and I have had several meetings over the course of the last two years during which he came in to discuss various newspaper polices he disagreed with. Sometimes he has left without convincing us to change; sometimes he has succeeded in his efforts because they were good suggestions, much like anyone else who visits with the News' leadership on a regular basis. So, this indeed is not an effort to scratch his back. Actually, this column honors the ideals of press freedoms and open government. I've written passionately about the subject before, and when the opportunity arises, it's important to take advantage of it. The unfortunate news is that despite Monday's victory for the press, Cox has said that he doesn't feel that the university presidency secrecy legislation is dead for the session. As I said earlier, Abrams is a powerful legislator and you might yet see an effort later this session to tack the secrecy provisions onto another bill. If that happens, I hope that there's enough legislators who will stand tall in honor of press freedom and open government to de-rail the effort again. Review history, and you will find very little evidence that keeping the work of government at any level behind closed doors is good for the public. Governing in the dark regularly leads to abuses of power, unethical decision making and bad policy. For everyone's sake, let's hope we've seen the last of the university presidency secrecy legislation forever. -- Devlyn Brooks is the managing editor of the Northfield News.
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