THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502120044
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
SOURCE: COLE CAMPBELL, Editor
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
In today's paper, staff writers from the Public Life Team report on democracy in action in neighborhoods across the country, including Hampton Roads.
According to James Madison, Virginia's third native son to serve as president, democracy needs three things to work well: participation, deliberation and a check on the tyranny of the majority.
In other words, citizens can be trusted to govern themselves when they get involved, discuss what's going on and don't gang up on those who disagree.
Lately, we tend to think of democracy mostly as participation. If everyone involved in an issue has a say in how it's resolved, we think that democracy is flourishing.
Not so, Madison would remind us.
If those involved don't know enough about an issue, or if some know more than others, participation by itself cannot guarantee a good decision.
A good decision requires deliberation - the review of relevant documents and data, the clatter and rumble of public discourse, the fruitful noise of making decisions together.
That's why the commonwealth of Virginia has long committed itself to a policy of open government, requiring public agencies to keep their meetings and records open to citizens, with some limited exceptions. If the state is truly of the people, by the people, for the people, then the people need to know what the state knows.
The General Assembly is considering several bills that touch upon how open the people's government will be in such areas as:
Juvenile justice: Some bills propose opening up how the juvenile justice system handles certain felonies, to help democracy deal with the explosion in violent juvenile crime.
Parole: A bill introduced by Del. Kenneth R. Melvin, D-Portsmouth, was intended to ensure that the Virginia Parole Board would no longer bar the public from reviewing how the board grants or denies parole to the 20,000 prisoners still eligible for it. But a last-minute substitution suggested by the parole board has watered down the bill, requiring only a list of parole decisions by offense categories and by the name, sex, race and age of inmates.
The citizens of Virginia - who will soon be paying nearly $400 million to build new prisons - should be able to distinguish between someone denied parole for failure to return rental property and someone denied parole for multiple car thefts. Both could be lumped together in a nonviolent-crime category.
Economic development: A bill to create the Virginia Economic Development Authority would let the authority declare off-limits any of its records. The Virginia Press Association has asked the House and Senate General Laws Committees to drop that provision in favor of existing exceptions for confidential business matters.
Fraud: Another bill, introduced by Sen. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, would clarify a state law offering confidentiality to government whistle-blowers who expose fraud and waste. Houck wants to correct the state internal auditor's interpretation that the law also cloaks the perpetrators of the fraud and the agencies they victimize.
General records: One bill proposes that state agencies claiming an exception to the public records law must explain in some detail the nature of documents they do not want to release. That would help citizens challenge such exceptions.
The great genius of democracy is its capacity to sort through all kinds of problems and programs, claims and counterclaims, truths and near-truths - as long as people can see for themselves what's afoot. by CNB