Rep. Jeremie Dufault recognized for pro-transparency stance
Rep. Jeremie Dufault has joined some of his colleagues in a commitment to legislative transparency, pledging not to use the secrecy “privilege” by directing the House Public Records Office to not invoke it on his behalf.
Rep. Jeremie Dufault (R-Selah)
Rep. Dufault (R-15) will receive the Ballard-Thompson Award from the Washington Coalition for Open Government, given to legislators who make an extraordinary contribution to government transparency. He is the ninth legislator to take the pledge that WashCOG has requested of all legislators, which states: “In the interest of public transparency and open government, I instruct the records officer not to invoke a legislative privilege on my behalf when responding to public records requests.”
Legislative privilege is a concept that has faced court challenges and may ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court. According to the Washington State Constitution, the term refers not to the ability to withhold public information from constituents, but merely states: “No member of the legislature shall be liable in any civil action or criminal prosecution whatever, for words spoken in debate.”
Nearly three-quarters of voters approved the forerunner of the Public Records Act in a 1972 referendum and more than 80% of Washington residents disapproved of legislative secrecy in an Elway/Cascade Public Media poll released last year. Legislative transparency is an unshakeable, decades-long consensus of Washington residents.
The commitment of Rep. Dufault and his colleagues who have taken the transparency pledge is echoed in the venerable words of the late Frank Chopp, Washington’s longest-serving House speaker, who said: “This issue is very simple. It involves two words, ‘legislative’ and ‘privilege.’ If you ask the general public what they think of each of those two words, they don’t like ‘legislative,’ generally, and they really don’t like ‘privilege.’ You put them together, and they hate it.”
Here are the other state legislators who have committed to not invoke “legislative privilege” to block release of public information:
