While Gov. Mark Sanford has pledged to keep government open, legislation he signed on Monday mandating openness at the state Department of Commerce also allows him to exclude the public from cabinet meetings.

Sanford came under fire in March for closing his cabinet meeting to the public and the media. He has since pledged to keep his meetings open. In early March, Gov. Sanford said that he had "a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of South Carolina to produce good sausage. The media, with all due respect, adds little value to the actual sausage-making process." His pledge to keep meetings open seems to indicate that he has modified that stance.

While the governor is an honorable man and seems to have the best interest of the citizenry in mind, what happens when his administration is out of office? What happens when another governor, Republican, Democrat or Independent, decides to slam the door? What happens when a new administration wants to tell the public only selected details only after the debate is over and public officials have "a final product."

As has been said here before, open government isn't sausage making. It is democracy in action. It's a cacophony of ideas that often clash. It is the foundation upon which this country was built.

Democracy demands that citizens know how their elected officials conduct their business. Citizens can't decide whether their government made the right decision without knowing which options were eliminated.

Lively discussion behind closed doors isn't necessarily better government. If that was the case, citizens wouldn't need the state's Freedom of Information Act to keep panels and committees, even advisory panels, operating in public view.