{"id":448,"date":"2013-03-23T22:23:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-23T22:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/03\/23\/what-a-way-to-celebrate-sunshine-week"},"modified":"2013-03-23T22:23:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-23T22:23:00","slug":"what-a-way-to-celebrate-sunshine-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=448","title":{"rendered":"What a way to celebrate Sunshine Week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>The New Mexico Senate celebrated Sunshine Week by \u2013 what? \u2013 cloaking lawmakers\u2019 emails in secrecy.<\/p>\n<p>Nice going, folks. You\u2019ve just made a mockery of the transparency many of you say you favor.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/www.cnjonline.com\/digest\/senatehasfunnywayofcelebratingtransparency.html#.UUtcLPB_ccU.twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnjonline.com\/digest\/senatehasfunnywayofcelebratingtransparency.html#.UUtcLPB_ccU.twitter\">http:\/\/www.cnjonline.com\/digest\/senatehasfunnywayofcelebratingtransparency.html#.UUtcLPB_ccU.twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sunshine Week, which concludes today, is meant to call attention to the need for government openness. The government conducts the public\u2019s business and thus, the public has a right to know what\u2019s being done in its name. New Mexico legislators, though, flouted that need by agreeing to keep emails from public view.<\/p>\n<p>The New Mexico Senate bill stipulates that communications are public only when the body meets. Legislators\u2019 private emails and other communications can be kept from the public, even when they\u2019re delivered on public time, using public equipment. The state\u2019s attorney general disagrees with the Legislature\u2019s decision to conceal public records. Gov. Susana Martinez must sign the legislation for it to allow a special exemption under the state\u2019s Inspection of Public Records Act. It\u2019s unlikely she\u2019ll go along.<\/p>\n<p>Still, for a body of state legislators to approve such an abomination on the very week intended to avoid this kind of chicanery is an insult to the people who pay the Legislature\u2019s freight.<\/p>\n<p>That would be the public, for whom lawmakers\u2019 work \u2013 not the other way around.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Mexico Senate celebrated Sunshine Week by \u2013 what? \u2013 cloaking lawmakers\u2019 emails in secrecy. Nice going, folks. You\u2019ve just made a mockery of the transparency many of you say you favor. http:\/\/www.cnjonline.com\/digest\/senatehasfunnywayofcelebratingtransparency.html#.UUtcLPB_ccU.twitter Sunshine Week, which concludes today, is meant to call attention to the need for government openness. The government conducts the public\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=448\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What a way to celebrate Sunshine Week<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}