The fact that the political climate is such that the response to officials violating the law is to legalize the behavior really speaks volumes to the arrogance of some lawmakers.

This is clearly indefensible. It would be nice to see the political arrogance of this move countered by rank and file Democrats intellectually honest enough to condemn this action.

The fact that Democrats broke the law.  And now are rallying to their comrades by repealing a law the REQUIRES open and honest Government should be telling to everyone..  What is it about Democrats obsession with closed doors and hiding in the dark in secret to do public work?  This is exactly how a group of 5th Columnist would operate……  (for the young, look up 5th Column)…

It is very unfortunate that political hacks continue to distort the facts, instead of providing readers with all of the information so they can be fully informed.
 
As stated in the Register-Guard’s (1/26) article:
“‘We were in a ‘situation where we had to submit the bill (in its current form) or wait until 2013 to clarify the law,’ he said, adding a workgroup of stakeholders was still molding the proposal.
 
“Prozanski said he had heard some concerns about the e-mail portion of the committee’s bill and that the concept ‘is still a work in progress.’
 “Prozanski added that the bill was not an endorsement of the county commissioners’ 2009 actions; although he doesn’t believe Handy and Sorenson ‘technically violated the open meetings law.’
“‘But their intent was to circumvent that law and their conduct did not pass the smell test,’ he said.
“Prozanski said he intended the bill to exempt only one-on-one e-mails — as long as they don’t represent the quorum of a three-person public body — because he considers that communication ‘the modern day letter that you would send through the U.S. Postal Service.’”
 
Here’s the Legislative Counsel Opinion that I relied on for introducing SB 1526 as a committee bill: http://www.leg.state.or.us/prozanski/lc3859daj.pdf
 
As stated above, a work group (that included the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association, cities and counties, and the ACLU) has been meeting to discuss updating Oregon’s public meeting laws to address modern electronic communications such as e-mail. But after numerous meetings we all agreed we would not be able to complete the work during the 2012 session. Accordingly, SB 1526 will not move forward and we will continue the work group’s efforts during the interim and present a new bill in the 2013 session.
 
It is also unfortunate the blogger failed to do their homework regarding the support for updating the public meeting law. If they had listened to the informational hearing held in during Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on February 1, they would know that both Republicans and Democrats want to see the law updated. We all continue to support the principles of Oregon’s public meeting law. The audio of that committee hearing can be accessed by navigating the following link: http://www.leg.state.or.us/listn/.
 
Lastly, I totally disagree with the conduct of my county commissioner, Pete Sorenson. I have publicly endorsed his opponent because I believe, as based on the Register-Guard’s coverage of the county lawsuit, Sorenson attempted to circumvent the state’s public  meeting laws when he was part of a group of county budget committee members that used a code name, “the book club,” and met at an undisclosed location to discuss the county budget.
 
Floyd Prozanski
State Senator, District 4