Interesting Perspective On Open Government

The leaders in the state capital gathered for a group grope session in front of the media the other day to lay out their agenda for the remaining days of the session which ends June 23rd.

Frankly, after watching the media event one would be hard pressed to identify the purpose of such a gathering. The Governor, Speaker Silver, Majority Leader Bruno, Minority Leader Tedisco all spoke and gave a laundry list of items they would like to see accomplished in the remaining time, and they used the time to take jabs at each other.

The Governor was asked for some detail on the items they are working to get a deal on and here is his response.

"I am sure that we will accomplish a number of pieces of legislation that we are working on right now in negotiations," Gov. David Paterson said.

He would not provide any details, saying announcing things publicly could compromise potential agreements. "We have to draw a distinction between open government and open negotiations," he said.

That is an interesting concept on open government, not even revealing what our government is negotiating. If the Governor is not interested in revealing what they are working on, why even hold a press conference?