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THE PRESIDENT: His time has ex-
pired. I cannot cut off Delegate Weidemeyer
and let you speak to him.
DELEGATE KIEFER: Mr. President,
do I have an opportunity to speak?
THE PRESIDENT: You do.
DELEGATE KIEFER: Mr. President
and ladies and gentlemen of the Conven-
tion, I rise to strongly urge the rejection
of this amendment. This is the very same
thing that this group rejected before. It is
far beyond anything that has ever been
contemplated by any state anywhere and
if we put this in the constitution here in
the form that it is now offered we are in
real trouble.
Delegate Weidemeyer's suggestion was
one that we had talked about and which I
thought the Committee had generally ap-
proved in principle, but, nevertheless, let
me point out to you that there is not a
single state in this Union that has any-
thing in its constitution about a right to
know.
Secondly, when we had the experts to
testify who were in favor of this general
concept the general counsel to the Senate
Committee and the other head or the ad-
ministrative chief of the House Committee,
one said "Please leave out the judiciary".
The other said "Please leave out the legis-
lature" and another said there are dozens
of examples where secrecy is needed and
there are dozens of examples where there
is an overt amount of secrecy.
This we know, but now the legislature
wants to be in the position where the
boards of education, the health department,
and all the organizations have to come
down and say please exempt us because
we have certain problems. Please do not
put this in the constitution. If you do, you
are really opening the door and the only
way it can be closed is by specific action
of the legislature.
There has never been any question about
the judiciary system, but the newspaper
reports would record it every time the
judge had a conference with counsel be-
cause that is a government procedure.
The legislature has already been put in
a fish bowl but if it cannot make its own
rules of procedure it is going to be in sad
disrepute.
I say to you ladies and gentlemen that
this amendment goes far beyond anything
we have ever seen anywhere and I ask
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that you reject it just as you did the
last time.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other delegate
desire to speak in favor?
(Call for the question.)
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Willoner.
DELEGATE WILLONER: Mr. Chair-
man, I really rise on a point of personal
privilege. I would like this body to recog-
nize the fact that Delegate Kiefer is speak-
ing as an individual and not as Chairman
for the Committee.
I would also like to indicate to the body
that Delegate Kiefer has obviously devel-
oped a closed mind when he is talking
about opening up. He did not listen to what
I said. This is a major change in this par-
ticular provision in that the "all" has been
stricken and this is no stronger than the
present public right to records that we
have today except that it is expanded to
meetings.
The other thing is that he says the legis-
lature could not even provide for their
own rules. If he reads it carefully, not only
does it provide for the legislature to pro-
tect its cause, it says "otherwise prescribed
by law". But our definition in 7.06 allows if
the legislature does not act, the local gov-
ernment is to act.
This is not the same amendment. Do not
be fooled by a man who is not speaking
for the Committee.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Willoner,
do you yield to a question from Delegate
Johnson?
DELEGATE WILLONER: I yield to Del-
egate Johnson.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Johnson.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: Delegate Wil-
loner, this concerns a problem that I know
you are quite aware of concerning certain
records and certain non-public meetings
that you and I both, and I am sure every-
one, feel certainly should not be open to
the public. I am speaking of court records
and other meetings. I am wondering if you
would consent to an amendment that would
insert such a phrase. This would be on
line 7, after the word "records", if you
would insert the phrase "as defined by law",
so that your amendment would read that
governmental proceedings, meetings and re-
cords as defined by law shall be open to
the people, etc.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Willoner.
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