Public access to government information is sometimes blocked for a variety of reasons. Legislators are considering adding to that list of reasons.
Every year, members of the General Assembly consider exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act. Stuff advocates say the lawmakers want to keep hidden. This year, for example, they approved exemptions for personal contact information of minors who participate in a state program as well as public utility account numbers. Senator Danica Roem is a Democrat from Manassas who consistently votes against each and every FOIA exemption, dozens of them over her time in office.
"The Freedom of Information Act is not just a big block of Swiss cheese that's meant to have 150 to 200 holes in it. That's got to stop," Roem says. "Legislators routinely, constantly poke holes in the Freedom of Information Act rather than trying to make the Freedom of Information Act more accessible to the public."
Megan Rhyne at the Coalition for Open Government says exempting information from disclosure is often tempting to elected officials.
"FOIA is all about exposing information, and people in power are uncomfortable with that quite often," Rhyne says. "And so, when you try to force transparency, that makes a lot of people uncomfortable."
Roem says she will continue to vote against exemptions to public information, even when she has to pull the bill out of a block of noncontroversial bills just to be the lone no vote in the Senate chamber.
