By Cindy McCurry-Ross
Normally, I’d be writing this column in the spring during Sunshine Week, but the issue of erosion of Florida’s Sunshine Laws is too urgent to wait.
The Legislature begins its 2016 session in January, about two months ahead of schedule, so bills are being crafted and filed and committee work is underway. Like a persistent tide gnawing at the shoreline, citizens and lawmakers have been eating away at one of the best open government laws in the country.
It’s not been a single, organized movement to annihilate the Sunshine Laws, rather a more disjointed, chewing away at the edges.
Over time, Florida lawmakers, have enacted more than 1,000 exemptions to the Sunshine Law, according to my colleagues at the Florida First Amendment Foundation, of which The News-Press Media Group is a member and supports financially with dues paid each year. [Read More]