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"Meetings" has been interpreted and,
despite very broad statutory language, the
courts have been quite restrictive. A meet-
ing was defined to include only gatherings
where members sit as a joint body at an
authorized meeting duly assembled. This is
based on a California case, Adler v. the
City Council.
Again, I would hope that the court in
construing this provision, would construe
it as broadly as possible, but I must admit
that the courts with the history of secrecy
have generally taken a very restrictive
view of language such as that proposed
here.
As I have said earlier, the word "rec-
ords" has been held to mean the more
finalized public records, so the notes be-
tween the governor and his aide are cer-
tainly not within the usual sense records.
Again, we do now have a common law
right to records. The aspects of prior notice
will be something that, of course, the court
will have to interpret. By this we mean
reasonable notice. I would certainly think
two hours' notice, as the Arkansas ap-
proach is, would certainly be appropriate
notice.
The enforcement of this would only be by
way of injunction or mandamus, and it
would only be to open the meeting or to
make the records available. That is es-
sentially what this provision says: it shifts
the burden from the citizen to prove he has
the right to these records, and to attend
these meetings, and to have notice of these
meetings, to the State to show that he does
not have that right.
If there are any questions, I will be glad
to answer them.
(Second Vice-President William James
assumed the Chair.)
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Are
there any questions, Delegate Raley?
DELEGATE RALEY: Delegate Willo-
ner, one of the questions that immediately
jumped into my mind is one that there
has been some controversy over before:
what about welfare rolls and income tax
returns?
DELEGATE WILLONER: This has lan-
guage modifying "except as otherwise pre-
scribed by law." At the present time a fed-
eral statute requires welfare records to be
kept secret. So this would not be covered,
but this provision is not to be operative.
It will be covered in the transitory provi-
sions until we pick the very delightful date,
July 4, 1970, and this would give the legis-
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lature time to take up any problems. So
it will not be any problem.
We have attached a model statute that
we lifted from the Harvard Law Review.
For those of us who do not like Harvard,
perhaps that was a bad choice, but in any
event it does show how this kind of prob-
lem can be solved by the legislature to
protect those areas of privacy.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Dele-
gate Raley.
DELEGATE RALEY: Delegate Willo-
ner, would this prohibit all executive meet-
ings of any governmental body, including
county governments and including commit-
tees of the legislature?
DELEGATE WILLONER: It would
stand as it stands now. Unfortunately, as
I said, the case law and interpretation of
meetings is limited to those meetings which
are formal meetings. As is noted in the
mandatory statute where you are discuss-
ing personnel matters or where you are
discussing acquisition of land, those could
be executive sessions, but this would have
to be protected by the legislature.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Could
the governor meet with the staff in private?
DELEGATE WILLONER: The research
in this area was a little difficult. There is
an apparent inherent right of the executive
staff to meet in private. I would have to
say that the language "meeting" in this
does not go to meetings of the executive
staff. The only law I could find on it was
law involving presidential meetings. The
President has a right to closed meetings,
for example, Cabinet meetings and things
like that. My feeling would be that if the
meeting was for the purpose of setting
forth a policy on which the governor was
going to act, the meeting should be open.
I would say the staff meeting would not
be open.
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Any
further questions?
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Delegate
Willoner, I just counted the number of
delegates on your minority report, and
you have fourteen. I am wondering why it
is not part of your majority report? Were
you meeting in secret, or just what
happened?
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Dele-
gate Willoner.
DELEGATE WILLONER: I would
rather yield to Delegate Hostetter, and let
him explain what occurred.
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