Lawmaker's bill would close some loopholes in Open Door Law

INDIANAPOLIS -- A state lawmaker trying to plug holes in Indiana laws favoring open government wants to ban "serial" meetings and forbid votes on public business by telephone and over the Internet.\nLegislation that would make these tactics a violation of the Open Door Law passed the state Senate unanimously in February and moved to the House for consideration.\n"Most governing bodies try very hard, I think, to comply with open-door laws. But you find some that always try to find a loophole," said Sen. Beverly Gard, a Republican from Greenfield who sponsored the bill. "Governing bodies need to do their business in the eye of the public."\nShe said some public officials skirt the law by holding serial meetings, in which a mayor or council president, for example, meets with only a few members at a time to discuss public business. This practice avoids the requirement of a public meeting because there is no quorum -- a majority of members present.\nSeveral basketball fans sued Indiana University after then-President Myles Brand met with IU trustees no more than four at a time to discuss coach Bob Knight. It takes five to make a quorum because there are nine trustees. After the series of meetings in 2000, Brand announced he was firing Knight. The lawsuit is still in the courts.\nGard's legislation also would prohibit officials from voting if they are not at the meeting during which the public business is being considered.\nLast year, a dispute about "remote voting" began when Democrats linked Rep. Thomas Kromkowski, D-South Bend, to the Statehouse by telephone and video camera over the Internet for a key vote on a proposal for full-day kindergarten. The vote by Kromkowski, who was at home recovering from heart surgery, nudged the legislation to apparent passage. But under protest from Republicans and some Democrats, the vote was thrown out, and the proposal failed.\nGard also sponsored a bill that would have allowed judges to impose a fine of up to $1,000 for an intentional violation of the state's Open Door Law or Access to Public Records Act. That bill did not make it out of a Senate committee.\nThe bill would have put much-needed teeth into Indiana's open-government laws, said Stephen Key, general counsel of the Hoosier State Press Association, a newspaper industry group. He said that without the threat of a financial penalty, those who control public records can "intentionally violate the law with no real consequences."\nKey is hopeful the bill can be revived.\n"We'll have to build the case and show the need," he said.\nGov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican who took office in January, said he is an advocate of open government and that the state's public access laws "seem to be effective."\n"If they need to be improved, I'm open to that," he said. "I always tend to lean in the direction of more openness."\n-Indianapolis Chief of Bureau Keith Robinson and Statehouse Writer Mike Smith contributed to this report.