(Portland) Commercial Review

Brian Bosma is a very smart guy.

Any interview with the Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives is a learning experience; he’s that well-versed in the issues. Even when you disagree with his conclusions and his positions, you have to respect the intelligence behind those conclusions and positions.

So why is he behaving so foolishly?

At issue is the question of public access to records of the Indiana House of Representatives. Under the Access to Public Records Act passed back in 1983, those materials would be available for public view and photocopying upon request.

The House, to its discredit, has behaved for years as if the law didn’t pertain to its own activities or its own members. Little things like, say, emails back and forth between lawmakers and lobbyists, the House has argued, were exempt from the law.

The state’s public access counselor disagreed, and people who believe that transparency is one of the most valuable aspects of democratic government filed a lawsuit in an attempt to make the House comply with the same rules by which every other government entity in Indiana has to abide.

There was one effort at the last minute by the House to exempt itself from the law, but it went nowhere.

And that would have been the end of that, except that Niki Kelly — the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette’s Statehouse reporter — discovered that Bosma’s office had directed that the House employee handbook had been re-written in such a way that guarantees none of those documents — those public documents — will ever see the light of day. They are now considered “work products” and are exempt.

No debate. No vote. No transparency.

And apparently no shame on Brian Bosma’s part when it comes to keeping voters and Indiana taxpayers in the dark when it comes to the workings of the Indiana House of Representatives.

He’s a smart guy. He should know better.

This was distributed by Hoosier State Press Association. Send comments to [email protected].

This was distributed by Hoosier State Press Association. Send comments to [email protected].