Common Cause Proposals Common Cause believes that each state should adopt a comprehensive open meetings statute to guarantee the public's right to know. Every time a quorum of a public body or a committee meets, there is potential for a decision or commitment which will affect the public. Officials who deliberate and make commitments behind closed doors deny citizens access to the information on which decisions are based and leave them no way to judge the actions of their representatives, even if the decisions made in closed meetings are later ratified in open session. Open meetings laws should also prevail when in conflict with other laws, ordinances, rules, or regulations, except in the case of the judiciary, which has its own rules for the process. Public notice should be given at least 72 hours in advance of all meetings.
Open meetings are of little value unless adequate advance notice is given.
Notice should include the agenda, date, time and place of the meeting. Provision for rescheduling meetings and calling emergency meetings should be strictly limited to avoid creating a loophole that would allow evasion of the law. All meetings should be open to the public except in certain limited and specific instances spelled out in the law. The law should clearly spell out such instances and avoid general language which might be abused. Closed meetings should be limited to discussion of specified subjects and held only after a recorded affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members taken at an open session for which advance notice was given.