Colorado Spending Transparency

During the last legislative session, COST came to realize that anti-transparency forces not only exist but they work very hard to block the sunshine on government.  We exposed how lobbyists, State Controller David McDermott, some legislators, school administrators and Governor Bill Ritter all tried to kill transparency legislation. 

But the state of Maine did Colorado anti-transparency forces one better (or worse depending on your perspective).  According to the Bangor Daily News, Maine state legislators actually introduced a bill that would make “public information unavailable to the public.” 

The bill was directed at state based, free market think tank the Maine Heritage Policy Center after it published the names, titles and salaries of state employees on the organization’s transparency Web site. 

Fortunately the bill recently failed but we must never forget how far those who can spend our money will go hide it from us.  That legislators would try to pass a law to forbid public information is chilling.  COST realizes that transparency is more important than ever.