ALEC Adopts Principles of Legislative Transparency

Members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have formally adopted "Principles of Legislative Transparency" to help guide how lawmakers conduct public business. ALEC is the nation's largest nonpartisan, individual membership organization of state legislators, with more than 2,400 legislator members from all 50 states, and 86 former members serving in the U.S. Congress.

The ALEC Principles of Legislative Transparency were modeled after language drafted by the Washington Policy Center (WPC) to address various transparency abuses by the Washington State Legislature.

I co-sponsored the principles for ALEC's consideration with Texas Representative Jerry Madden who serves as Public Sector Chair of ALEC's Public Safety and Elections Task Force. Here are Rep. Madden's comments:

"The legislative process works best when citizens are provided the opportunity to be actively involved in shaping their laws. This is why I co-sponsored the 'Principles of Legislative Transparency' and am excited to see ALEC embrace these open government principles for use by lawmakers across the country."

Courtney O'Brien, Director of ALEC's Public Safety and Elections Task Force, had this to say about the principles:

"ALEC supports and firmly believes that transparency is vital in the legislative process. Our legislative membership is proud to support the 'Principles of Legislative Transparency.' Citizens should be able to participate actively in the legislative process and we believe these principles provide that opportunity."

Many thanks to ALEC for embracing our proposal to improve legislative transparency. Hopefully our lawmakers in Washington State will do the same. The people's legislative business should be conducted in a manner that facilitates the participation of every citizen that wants to be involved. If lawmakers are serious about providing legislative transparency they should take these principles to heart and live by them to help enable the public to be part of the legislative process in a meaningful way.

ALEC Principles of Legislative Transparency

ALEC affirms that transparency and public disclosure in the legislative process is vital to a representative democracy. With one of the fundamental goals of public hearings being to respectfully hear from the public so that citizens are provided the opportunity to comment on proposed changes to state law, lawmakers should strive to provide adequate notice before public hearings or votes occur so that citizens are able to participate in the legislative process in a meaningful way.

Guiding principles of legislative transparency

The fundamental principles presented here provide guidance for a transparent legislative process to help inform the debate while providing citizens the opportunity to be heard on the laws that will impact their lives.

• Details of bills should be publicly available before legislative action – Before a legislative committee or body of the Legislature takes action on legislation, the details being considered should be made publicly available with as much advance notice as possible. Preferably at least seventy-two hours notice of bill details and planned legislative action should be provided.

• Bills should receive a public hearing before legislative action is taken – To help ensure adequate public debate, legislative actions should not take place on bills until the version being acted on has been subject to a public hearing that was scheduled with adequate public notice.  

• Final passage of bills should be delayed until adequate time has been provided for public review – Before a body of the Legislature takes action on a bill for final passage, the details should be made available to lawmakers and the public for at least twenty-four hours beforehand.

• Bills should not combine unrelated subjects and placeholder titles should not move out of committee without complete text – Lawmakers should keep bills focused on germane topics and not move out of committee blank or placeholder titles without complete text that deprive the public from knowing the full details of a proposal until after the opportunity for public hearing and comment has occurred. The public should be provided the opportunity to comment on the actual proposed language and details to be considered.

Additional Information
Senators send Majority Leader letter about transparency abuses
Examples of legislative transparency good and bad
Legislature keeps public out by flouting own transparency rules
Sunshine Week: “Legislative Transparency Act”