Happy Independence Day!
Today’s newsletter might feel a little inside-baseballish, but don’t roll your eyes just yet. Let’s talk about democracy.
Back in the 1700s, when the country was getting its start, the guys with the buckle shoes and ruffled shirts worried a lot about their democracy’s sustainability. On Dec. 5, 1810, then-president James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, said in his second annual message to Congress that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
An informed citizenry, then. People knowing what the people they elected are up to.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” Madison wrote in Federalist 51. “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
Alas, the angels are not in charge. We must rely on those well-instructed citizens, on checks and balances, on the rule of law.
Madison saw a free press as so crucial to the longevity of democracy that it was the only industry he protected in the Bill of Rights, right there in the First Amendment: Free speech, freedom of religion, free press.
That’s because the press was, and remains, the principal conduit for informing the citizens upon whose shoulders democracy rests.
As Jennifer Palmer explained in her story, Oklahoma Watch sought a record of who entered the Department of Education building and when. The agency refused, citing a security exemption from the Open Records Act meant to thwart terrorists.
The comings and goings of public servants isn’t exactly the alarm system diagram or the combination to the vault. Anyone sitting in the parking lot can observe who enters the building.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond agreed, issuing an opinion that those records are indeed public records. With that settled, it is clearly illegal for the Department of Education to withhold them.
When do public officials strain to avoid the public’s gaze? Only when they’re up to something they don’t want the public to see.
When they don’t want the public to be, as Madison put it, well-instructed.
More worth reading:
Chickasaw Nation Seeks Coney Island Hotel and Casino
The Chickasaw Nation is leading a proposal that, if approved, will transform New York’s iconic Coney Island with the construction of a $3.4 billion casino and hotel. [The Oklahoman]
$70 Million in Oklahoma Education Money Withheld
The Trump administration is indefinitely withholding more than $70 million in federal education programs meant for Oklahoma students and educators, including money for teacher development, English learners, after-care programs and migrant children. [Oklahoma Voice]
LOFT’s ODMHSAS Report Releases
A newly released report from the state’s Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency confirmed longstanding, egregious financial mismanagement at the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and validated the firing of former Commissioner Allie Friesen, leaders in the Legislature said. [Tulsa World ▲]
Rural School Counseling Programs Lose Funding
A program promising much-needed mental health professionals for rural Oklahoma schools is on the chopping block of funding cuts from the Trump Administration. [KGOU]
▲=Possible paywall
“You can call me what you want to, but Okie is OK with me.”
—Zeke Clements
Ciao for now,
Ted Streuli
Executive Director, Oklahoma Watch
tstreuli@oklahomawatch.org
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