Good Government is Not Rehearsed

Since the dawn of representative democracy, politicians have been known to rehearse their votes in private before meeting formally to act out their decisions in public.

Council members talk over matters on the phone and negotiate their votes. Commissioners may meet for breakfast and caucus before a meeting. E-mails are exchanged so that board members have a script outlining what will occur at a public forum.

Usually, there's no way to prove that such pre-arranging is happening. It is usually conducted in a manner that could be termed borderline legal. No matter how minor, however, the practice of rehearsing votes in advance of a public session violates the spirit of the process.

That makes it just plain wrong.

In Annapolis, the practice has continued to be on full display during Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration. Prior to Board of Public Works meetings, the governor and state Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp regularly meet outside public view in a separate conference room. The powerful board, which makes major decisions about state contract spending, has just three members. O'Malley, therefore, needs to only convince Kopp on how he wants to proceed.

The the third board member, state Comptroller Peter Franchot, usually sits alone at the board's dais, while Kopp and O'Malley huddle in another room. Franchot, you see, is a bit of a political firebrand; O'Malley has little hope of corralling the feisty comptroller, so O'Malley cuts his deals with Kopp. When O'Malley and Kopp emerge, the votes more often than not add up to 2-1. The two-against-one strategy is also used to beat down Franchot's arguments during especially contentious debates.

Franchot says he has become growingly concerned that these pre-meetings contain substantive discussions of business before the board. He also points out that state lawyers have advised him the meetings appear to be subject to the state's Open Meetings Act, which requires that citizens be allowed to observe the deliberations and decisions of public bodies and that meetings be announced in advance.

That would lead one to conclude that such back-room meetings are illegal. The right thing to do would be for O'Malley to open such pre-meetings to the public.

Good government always has transparency at its heart -- that's true in Washington, Annapolis and in local governments everywhere. Good government also need not be rehearsed -- the public must be able to watch as decisions are made, laws are crafted and lives are changed.

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