COLUMBIA - The House Republican Caucus meetings and records should be open to the public, Attorney General Henry McMaster said in a nonbinding opinion Monday.

Because the caucus is using office space in state-owned buildings for free, it is a public body and subject to the Freedom of Information Act, McMaster said.

"It is our opinion that the Majority Caucus is subject to the Freedom of Information Act," the opinion reads.

Majority caucuses are made up of the leadership of the party.

The decision doesn't mean the caucuses will open their doors, but it is still positive news, said Bill Rogers, executive director of the South Carolina Press Association.

With closed meetings, "The public is not privy to discussions on how public policy is formed," Rogers said.

Still, McMaster said the Legislature could change the law, or possibly even House and Senate rules, to exempt themselves from statutes covering open meetings and public records. But with time waning in this legislative session, House GOP Leader Jim Merrill, R-Daniel Island, said that move seemed unlikely this year. He said, for now, the caucus will meet in the open, as it has all but once this session.

But the meetings won't be open for long, Merrill said. The caucus plans to pay rent to remove the public-support argument, and could potentially change the House rules, he said.

"We've contended from the beginning that political caucuses aren't subject to the FOI laws," Merrill said. "I would like to (change the rules) to stipulate that a political caucus is not the same as a committee or anything else, and it needs to be allowed to discuss partisan politics sometimes in private."

Merrill argues that the caucus should be allowed to talk about election and fundraising strategy without "instantly having to tell the Democrats."

Republicans control a majority of the House and Senate, which means the majority caucuses could decide the fate of legislation out of the public's view. Merrill said the caucus doesn't take binding votes behind locked doors.

The opinion was requested in July by Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, after reporters from news organization, including The Post and Courier, were shut out from a caucus meeting where Republicans were conferring about last year's House speaker's race.

"We've thought from the get-go that it's much to-do about nothing, generated mostly by the media," Merrill said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Reach John Frank (803) 799-9051 or jbfrank@postandcourier.com.