The taxpayers of Washington received both good news and bad news from the state Legislature.
The good news is the Democrats and Republicans finally found common ground and overwhelmingly approved controversial legislation.
The bad news is that the Legislature passed legislation (Senate Bill 6617) which would hide most of their public records from you.
This arrogance and lack of transparency is yet another example of why citizens have lost faith and trust in their government and both major political parties.
The legislature has decided to exempt themselves from the Public Records Act approved by the voters in an initiative that covers all other elected and appointed officials at all levels of government in the state of Washington.
Recently a judge ruled that the act also covers the Legislature, so legislators saw an urgent need to clarify that the members of the Legislature are a special class of officials and exempt from public access to their records.
I guess that’s why the Legislature attached an emergency clause to the bill.
Oh, wait.
Maybe that was attached so the public cannot refer this legislation to the voters.
How ironic, the public has access to the emails and text messages of a street maintenance worker regarding potholes, But not the members of the Legislature when discussing taxing and spending of the more than $40 billion state budget.
What do they have to hide?
Steve Burkett,
Sequim