Editorial: Secrecy and gambling study panel

But the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, created by Congress in 1996, has shown recently that it has little regard for accountability, refusing to conduct its business in the open for the public to see. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., has charged that twice recently the commission has violated federal open meeting laws.

In the first instance the commission's research subcommittee met behind closed doors in Denver last week to discuss the controversial methodology being used for its survey of gambling habits. The most recent incident was a Friday commission meeting held without sufficient advance notice.

The executive director of the commission, Timothy Kelly, told the Sun's Jeff German he believes the commission doesn't have to abide by the open meeting provisions of the Federal Advisory Commission Act. But Bryan suggests this contradicts comments made by Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who was the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that wrote the legislation. On the Senate floor, at the time of the commission's creation, Glenn urged panel members to read the federal open meeting law carefully and "adhere to its requirements."

As if that's not enough, a General Services Administration official wrote in an Oct. 9 letter to Bryan that the commission must in fact comply with the open meeting requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. And in the commission's charter is language that it would abide by the open meeting provisions.

Plus, as Bryan noted, discussing issues involving gambling hardly merit the secrecy requirements that national security issues do. "This is not the Manhattan Project," Bryan said. If the commission continues down this road of secrecy it will damage the credibility of its findings due to Congress in June. Americans deserve better from the National Gambling Impact Study Commission.

Sure, it might be more difficult to conduct the people's business in the open, but that's not the issue. The issue is open government and accountability to the American people whose representatives established the commission.

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