“Without publicity, no good is permanent; under the auspices of publicity, no evil can continue.” — Jeremy Bentham

At least as long as I’ve been a journalist, some lawmakers in Lansing have tried to make the Legislature and the governor’s office subject to state transparency laws.

And, as long as I’ve been a journalist, those efforts have died on the vine, with little support from either chamber of the Legislature.

It’s time for that to change.

Only one other state — Massachusetts — exempts both the Legislature and the governor from public disclosure laws. About a dozen states exempt lawmakers from such laws. Congress also exempted itself from the federal Freedom of Information Act, which, like similar laws in the states, compels public officials to hand over documents to the public when the public asks for them.

Those exemptions allow lawmakers and the governor to act in secret. No one can see who they’re talking to or what they’re talking about, how they run their offices, or how they decide to spend the public money appropriated to their offices.

That’s a bad thing.

At the very least, disclosure laws act a bit like police cars. When you know police patrol an area regularly or you know of a common speed trap, you’re less likely to speed through that area. Likewise, when public officials know the public could peek in on their office at any time, they’re less likely to use that office inappropriately.

FOIA laws aren’t perfect.

For one thing, in Michigan, the law grants public bodies too many broad exemptions from disclosure, allowing them to deny public records requests for things like “unwarranted invasion of an individual’s privacy.” Certainly, some things ought to be exempt from disclosure, like social security numbers or the names of undercover police officers, but the current list of allowable denials is too long and too broad.

For another, the law allows the agency that holds the records to decide whether the requested records are subject to disclosure. If an agency is trying to hide something, they have dozens of legal exemptions allowing them to deny or redact the records, and that agency gets to decide if the records fall under one of those exemptions.

For yet another thing, FOIA can get expensive. The law allows the agency that receives a request to charge for the staff time it takes to collect and, if necessary, redact the requested records, and to charge for every page. We’re talking thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars for some requests.

Finally, if the requester thinks the government wrongly denied him or her, his or her only real recourse is to sue the public body that issued the denial. If the requester’s lawsuit is successful, he or she can win back court costs, but he or she still has to come up with that money up front, find and hire an attorney, and go through the time-consuming hassle of filing suit.

All that ought to change, too.

But, at the very least, the law ought to apply to everyone in government, including lawmakers and the governor.

The government ought to consider transparency part of its job, and the cost of being transparent just part of the cost of doing business. After all, the records belong to the public, anyway, because they were created with taxpayer dollars.

FOIA protects not just journalists, who frequently use FOIA to collect information for stories, or attorneys, who often use the law to collect information for lawsuits and other legal action, or businesses, who often use the law to gather information to protect their interests.

FOIA protects all of us.

Every Michigander can (and should) want to know what’s going on in his or her government and can (and should) request documents to get answers to those questions.

As in many past legislative sessions, bills to force lawmakers and the governor to hand over documents have been introduced in each chamber of the Legislature.

As in many past legislative sessions, none of those bills have yet to receive a committee hearing, let alone a vote.

It’s time for lawmakers to get moving on those bills and finally open up all corners of Michigan’s government to public disclosure laws.

Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-354-3112 or jhinkley@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley.