Two bills have been introduced in the South Dakota Legislature this session concerning open government. The prime sponsor of SB 186 is Republican Dave Knudson, while the prime sponsor of SB 189 is Democrat Nancy Turbak Berry. We're pleased that both parties have taken an interest in open government, spurred perhaps by the initiative taken by Attorney General Larry Long, who established a task force to forward the issue.
Even though both bills promote more accessibility to records in both state and local governments, there are differences. The Republican bill, in general, tries to better define which records should be open and which should be closed. One of the challenges of the current law is that the status of many records isn't clear, and the tendency of most government officials is to keep records closed. SB 186 also includes a number of recommendations from the Attorney General's task force.
SB 189, however, starts from a different premise: that all government records shall be open, except those that are specifically defined to be closed. The bill then lists items and reasons for certain information (such as social security numbers, for identity theft reasons) that should be closed. A key element is a provision that for records that aren't clearly defined as open or closed, an injunction can be granted until the matter is cleared up.
In some ways, both bills end up near the same place. At this point, the Republican bill has the edge because Knudson has discussed it with Gov. Mike Rounds, who isn't enthused about opening up government records further.
We prefer the Democrat bill, which has a structure similar to many other states with better open records laws. We're appreciative of the work legislators and the attorney general have done, and expect that progress will be made in this session that will help South Dakotans know more about what their government is doing.
-- Jon M. Hunter / Madison Daily Leader
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