Woster: Your right to know is not optional for government – Mitchell Republic

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We are at the end of national Sunshine Week, and for some reason I have been thinking about a brief, witty exchange on governing in a scene in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’’
Sunshine Week is a national observance of the importance of open government and of transparency in the actions and decisions of government decision-makers. It’s a time to reflect on the critical need for public access to information, especially about government. At its core, Sunshine Week is about the public’s right to know, a key piece of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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For decades as a working newspaper reporter, I talked about the need for open government, for citizens to have all necessary information to make informed decisions about public policy. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times in my career I wrote stories or columns that included “your right to know.’’ Just the other day, I saw that worded in a slightly different way – “My right to know.’’ Phrasing it that way – my right – might help us to make the observance of Sunshine Week and the issue of public access to information more personal. And it is personal. I have a right to know. If public officials o agencies hinder that right, they are taking something from me. And from you. That should infuriate us all.
The business of open government isn’t just a thing for journalists, you know. It belongs to all of us, each of us. Government in this country, at any level from local to national, exists to serve and protect the people. We choose our leaders through the ballot process. Those leaders are supposed to do our bidding, not the other way around. Reflecting on those things is why I remembered the bit from Monte Python.
There’s a scene in the movie where King Arthur converses with a peasant (Dennis, by name, although the king fails to ask the man his name). Arthur simply wishes to know who lives in a nearby castle. He tells Dennis and a peasant woman nearby that he is king. Well, they wonder, who made you king? Arthur tells them the story of the lady of the lake and the sword Excalibur and the business of whoever pulls the sword from the stone shall be king. He tells them that he, Arthur, pulled the sword free, and that’s why he is their king.
Dennis puts in a plug for representative government, telling a flabbergasted and angry Arthur, “Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.’’
King Arthur doesn’t get that at all. But we should. That’s how it is supposed to work in this country. Executive (and legislative, too, for that matter) power derives from decisions of the masses, from the people, through their votes. And, to bring things around to Sunshine Week, the people have the right to know what the government they install is doing. It’s that simple.
Yes, I’m sure it would be much easier for a governing body to operate without public scrutiny. Even on the library board in Pierre (the only governing body experience I have had in my life), we sometimes were nervous about public reaction to some of our decisions. But the people in our community had the right to know what we were doing, so there we were. And, as a library-board decision maker for a few years, I found that I made better decisions when I listened to what people thought about what we planned to do. Letting the sunshine into agency, board and commission proceedings is valuable for the officials at the table, too, if they take the time to listen.
Government has a duty to let the sunshine in. I believe as citizens, we have the responsibility to be informed about our government. That isn’t a Republican or Democrat thing. It isn’t arch-conservative right or flaming liberal left. It’s all of us, each of us, every citizen stepping up to take responsibility for the direction of the country. It starts with sunshine.
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