Lawmakers should hold their caucus meetings in public

South Carolina's Republican lawmakers held a meeting behind closed doors last week. These state representatives, elected and paid by the people, met at the Statehouse, a public building constructed by taxpayers for their meetings.

Security guards from the House Sergeant-At-Arms staff made sure that no pesky members of the public could get in and find out what they were saying.

And what were they discussing at this closed meeting?

How to spend your money.

They were discussing disagreements among themselves on how to design the state budget and protests made by Gov. Mark Sanford about how much money the House was planning to spend.

Some Republicans think the House should spend all the money the state plans to take in from taxes this year. Others think they should return some money to taxpayers.

From all accounts, the House Republican Caucus met to iron out those details.

Isn't it obvious that this is a discussion that should be held in public? Shouldn't voters be allowed to know how their representative stands on such a question?

Lawmakers don't think so. They think they have a right to discuss matters of public business in private. They claim that the Republican caucus is not a public body.

Put aside for the moment the fact that the Republican caucus makes up a majority of the state House of Representatives. What they are claiming is that a group of officials elected and paid by the public, meeting in a building provided to them by the public for that purpose, guarded by public employees, and discussing how to spend public funds is not a public body.

No other elected body would be allowed to get away with this. Six of seven members of the Spartanburg County Council are Republicans. If they formed a caucus, could they simply exclude the lone Democrat and meet in secret to form the county budget? Of course not.

The actions of the Republican caucus are certainly a violation of the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and almost certainly a violation of the letter of that act.

Some lawmakers have discussed revising the law to specifically exclude legislative caucuses.

A better idea would be to live up to the ideals lawmakers claim to hold about open government. Let your constituents see what you do. When you discuss how to handle their money, and whether to return any of that money to them, have the decency to let them listen in on the conversation.