The Washington Coalition for Open Government will present its 2014 Ballard/Thompson Award to Senate Majority Floor Leader Joe Fain. The award honors a member of the state legislature who demonstrated outstanding dedication to the cause of open government during the previous legislative session.
The Coalition is honoring Senator Fain, a Republican from the 47th District, for being the prime sponsor of ESB 5964, which mandates that most elected officials (except legislators) and public records officers are to receive training at least every four years on records retention, disclosure and public meetings. Senator Fain was able to guide the bill through the legislative process, avoiding attempts to weaken it, and getting it passed and signed by Governor Inslee.
The Ballard/Thompson Award is named in recognition of former Speaker of the House Clyde Ballard and former Chief Clerk of the House and Senator Alan Thompson. Ballard, a Republican, and Thompson, a Democrat, were champions of open government in the legislature, as well as founding directors of Washington Coalition for Open Government.
The award will be presented Monday, Jan. 26, in Olympia.
The Coalition will also hold it’s first-ever WCOG Legislative Day in Olympia that day. WCOG members and members of the general public will gather at 9 a.m. in the Washington Room of the Pritchard Building on the capitol campus in Olympia for coffee and pastries, copies of WCOG’s 2015 Legislative Priorities, and pep talks by our legislative experts. At 10 a.m., we will fan out to meet legislators to promote government transparency, accountability and accessibility in Washington.
ESB 5964 was amended in the Senate Governmental Operations Committee to eliminate the mandatory nature of training, saying only “elected officials” may participate in training. Senator Fain worked to exclude this amendment when the bill passed on the Senate floor. Senator Fain then worked with Representative Gerry Pollet and House leadership to get the bill passed in the House without further amendment, helping to ensure it wouldn’t go back to the Senate for concurrence and risk being lost in the final days of session.
WCOG President Toby Nixon said, “The Coalition preferred a stronger bill that would have required legislators to also take part in training. But ESB 5964 fulfills most of WCOG’s long-standing legislative priority for training, and Senator Fain did the best he could under difficult circumstances to get the bill passed.”
The Washington Coalition for Open Government is an independent non-partisan non-profit organization. It was founded in 2002 by a group of individuals representing organizations with a broad spectrum of opinions and backgrounds, all dedicated to the principles of strengthening the state’s open government laws and protecting the public’s access to government at all levels. The Coalition believes transparency and public participation are building blocks of good government.
For more information, contact Washington Coalition for Open Government, 6351 Seaview Avenue NW, Seattle, WA 98107-2664 or on the web at www.washingtoncog.org or call (206) 782-0393.
