‘Rat’ weakens FOI and violates a pledge

The lawmakers call it a‘rat,’ that sneaky little rider that jumps onto unrelated legislation. This rat has gnawed away at the governor’s vow to foster open government by letting utility regulators hide their process.

When

the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information asked members of the legislative and executive branches to sign a pledge agreeing to safeguard the state’s 40-year-old Freedom of Information law, one of the first to sign was Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

It appears that the governor didn’t mean it.

In the closing hours of the legislative session, the governor’s budget office secretly engineered a bill that allows the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) to keep secret and exempt from the FOI Law any discussions its three commissioners conduct outside regularly scheduled meetings.

This violation of the letter and the spirit of a law devoted to the public’s right to know what its government is doing, was quietly slipped into the bill meant only to implement the budget that had already been voted. The legislature then passed it during the one-day special session at the end of June, a session made necessary when the General Assembly previously passed a budget that led to threats by some aggrieved businesses to leave the state over the new taxes it imposed.

The formerly five-member regulatory authority, which, among other things, approves the rates for electric and gas bills, had sought the exemption in a year-end report to the governor. It had argued that since its reduction to three members, the commissioners were concerned that any conversation between two of them would constitute a quorum and require advance public notice as a meeting.

However, the exemption that accompanied the budget implementer went quite a bit further, declaring all non-scheduled meetings free from public review.

Sneaking controversial items into bills assured of last-minute passage without a public hearing or debate, is a fairly common practice— note the recent tax added to parking fees at state parks. Appropriately, the term at the State Capitol for these items is “rat.” Lawmakers usually introduce them at the behest of a special interest, sometimes even a special person.

In the latter category, we recall a rat slipped into a budget bill by then Senate President Kevin Sullivan for the sole purpose of providing a job for the Hartford County sheriff after abolishment of the office by a two-to-one vote in a public referendum. Mr. Sullivan, now the state tax commissioner, admitted rats are “not pretty, not right, not good,” but are an efficient way of getting last-minute business done; crucial business like getting a former sheriff and formidable Democratic fundraiser a job.

This latest rat accommodates only the three regulators, allowing them to conduct sensitive public business in non-scheduled meetings. As with the tax on parking fees at state parks, we doubt this proposal would have survived the scrutiny of a public examination.

Devon Puglia, a spokesman for the governor, said the purpose of the change was not to block public access to debate but to improve PURA’s efficiency. With only a three-member panel, any discussion about PURA matters by two members constituted a quorum— meaning a meeting covered by the FOI law. Members told the governor this was too cumbersome.

We don’t see it that way. And what an awful precedent. One could easily apply the administration’s logic to every three-member board of selectmen. That would move many discussions behind closed doors.

In any event, the administration’s argument should have been subject to a public hearing process. Circumventing the normal legislative procedure was a clear violation of the pledge, which contains a commitment to subject to “public processes” any proposals to reduce public disclosure.

And it wasn’t the only rat in the implementer bill. The Courant discovered the governor quietly shifted 32 jobs — mainly communications officials who provide public information on state agencies — from civil service status to political appointees That makes it easier to replace these well-paid positions, which may make those folks think twice about what they communicate.

Previous, non-Democratic governors employed some of these jobholders. They may not be feeling too comfortable about now, regardless of how well they have done their jobs.

The employment of rats is indeed “not pretty, not right, not good,” as the former Senate president Sullivan once noted. But don’t expect this administration to abandon the practice anytime soon — even if the governor signs another pledge.