Thanks to State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), COVID-19 data kept secret for 99 days was released today. Open Records exemptions must be rejected. I've filed to run against State Rep. CYNTHIA WARD "CYNDI" STEVENSON, self-styled "conservative Republican," whose bill discussed in this editorial would have prevented me from learning that St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District Chair BARRY MARK BENJAMIN claimed to vote from a boat, when he actually lives in Jacksonville with his wife and mother.
From Orlando Sentinel:
t least one legislator is standing up for Florida’s diminished public records law | Editorial
It’s good to see that not every lawmaker has surrendered to the relentless, decades-long, bipartisan legislative assault on open government in Florida.
State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat, is suing the Florida Department of Health and the surgeon general to release detailed records about the spread of COVID.
Smith’s request in July for COVID-19 information, broken down by age, was rejected by the state. Officials cited an exemption to the state’s public records law, an exemption that Florida law says can be lifted “when necessary to public health.” The state didn’t even attempt to explain how withholding basic health data was in the public’s best interest.
Smith, along with the Florida Center for Government Accountability, are accurately arguing that it’s necessary to public health for Floridians to have age-specific information about COVID, especially with the start of a new school year.
They’re absolutely right.
But they’re also dealing with an administration that doesn’t even bother to hide its contempt for open government.
More than that, they’re dealing with executive and legislative branches that every year attempt to undermine Florida’s constitutionally guaranteed access to public records and public meetings by creating new exemptions.
This state’s once enviable open government law has been hollowed out by a GOP-led Legislature. The Republicans in charge have been abetted by a Democratic minority that — thanks to a supermajority requirement in the constitution — still possesses enough votes to stop new exemptions from passing, but rarely uses that power.
More often, Democrats are siding with Republicans in shutting off avenues of information, everything from property records to Public Service Commission meetings.
A noxious bill that would make elected legislators’ home addresses secret, rendering it impossible to know if they live in the district they represent, actually passed through threeSenate committees — gaining Republican and Democratic votes — before it finally died. It’ll be back.
Imagine if, instead of focusing so much energy on making less information available to the public, the government used its imagination to make getting information easier.
For starters, it could crack down on local and state government bureaucrats who deliberately thwart the public’s requests for information. These days, it’s common for public records demands to simply go unanswered, or get slow-walked, or require the payment of massive fees that many people can’t afford. The penalties for those abuses ought to be far more severe and more common.
But where does that kind of reform begin? Certainly not with Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose own departments consistently flout the law.
The Orlando Sentinel has gone to court twice this year over the administration’s refusal to release public records related to the COVID outbreak.
In one case, the newspaper was trying to get weekly White House coronavirus reports. In the other case, it was trying to get better information about COVID variants. In both cases, the press prevailed, and in both cases, the state wasted time and money opposing simple requests for public information.
Now the state is stonewalling an elected representative who wasn’t asking for names or personal health information of any kind. Smith was asking for 14 days of data — case counts, positivity rates, hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations — broken down by age group.
The request was made in late July, ahead of the new school year. Parents and policy-makers — including school boards — had a compelling need to know what they were confronting as thousands of students prepared to head back to class amid the devastating summer surge of COVID cases.
The state had the data, but just didn’t want to provide it. Officials had all but shut down the flow of COVID information in early June after DeSantis decided to lift an emergency declaration, feeling it was time to get back to normal.
But COVID’s delta variant didn’t care about the governor’s feelings or his political agenda. The disease tore through Florida, straining health-care systems and creating uncertainty about how to handle the start of school.
There was nothing to be lost in giving Floridians more information, and everything to gain. Instead, the state dug in its heels and refused Smith’s request.
Now he’s taking the state to court.
Good. Maybe Smith’s courage will infect his fellow Democrats, who for too long have done little to nothing to halt the erosion of Florida’s open government laws.
This state needs at least one party that’s willing to stand up for the bedrock principle that open government is better government.
We know from experience where Republicans stand on this issue. The question is whether Democrats will finally stand with them or against them.
This editorial originally appeared in the Orlando Sentinel.
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