Nogales international., 1939-03-04
PRESS COMMENT
EDITORIALS FROM
OTHER PAPERS)
THE SENATE SHOULD
BARE THE RECORD

The suit filed by former Senator
Harold G. Roesner of Santa Cruz
county against Maricopa county
loan company for 100000 damages
raises some interesting public ques-
tions because of his allegation that
the state senate, meeting in secret
! session, was a party to the series
of events preceding his resignation
from the senate. Since substantial
tion of his charges would seem to
require testimony by members Of
the senate who attended the secret
session, the question will inevitably
arise in the course of the suit
whether or not executive proceed
ings are absolutely privileged, by
sole warrant of members decision,
or there must be sound and judi
cable reasons of public policy justi-
flying such secrecy.
The point is a legal one and
therefore arcane to lay approach
but in imaginable circumstances
the denial of the right to compel
the testimony of legislators might
operate to deprive a. citizen of
means Of vindicating himself of
slanderous reports and allegations,
and it would therefore seem that
the courts would have some say as
to what is essentially privileged in
legislative proceedings and what is
not, as otherwise legislatures might
by simply turning the key keep
from the public information to
which it might be necessary to the
general good it should have. The
executive session is a recourse often
abused and if incident to this &C
ton there should be a sharp judicial
definition Of the essential nature
of what is privileged in legislative
proceedings it would be most illum-
mating.
Unless it were able to justify the
cloture of the executive session at
which the Roesner matter was al
legedly considered, the senate might
through the interrogation of it's
members, as witnesses, have to dis
close the entire proceedings it was
at such pains to conceal. This is a
course which many citizens feel it
should have adopted at the outset
and course which members Of |
the senate now must feel it would |
have been better to adopt, in view
of the reflections which Mr.. Roes- |
ner's charges put upon its mem
bers, among them that the senate
in secret session listened to "false
and malicious" statements concern
ing himself, the purpose of which
was Ito keep such laws of like ma
ture as this plaintiff (Roesner) had
introduced from becoming g. law
Of the state" !
The official record shows that
the senator voluntarily resigned
for other reasons but the complaint
in his suit alleges that the false
accusations made against him by
the defendant to the senators were
designed ito bring about charges
by the senate" and "to have him
expelled from the senate to get re-
venge' for the bill he had intro
duced affecting defendants inter-
est. 1t is here implied that the SEN
ate was used as fulcrum for an
attempt to employ external pressure
to bring about the expulsion of a
member.
The suit itself, between private
parties, is of no public concern,
but the manner in which the name
of the senate has been brought in
to it is a matter of serious public
concern which the senators ought
to satisfy at once by making pub
lie all that was said and done at
their injudicious secret session of
January 30. (TucSon Citizen)