Open government, the NMPED email brouhaha, and the CEO

Governor Susana Martinez, through spokesman Scott Darnell, argues that politicians and public servants can spend public power and resources, on or off the record, at their discretion.

It is politicians and public servants, she argues, who will decide when politicians and public servants will be within or out of our sight and hearing, when they spend power and resources that belong fundamentally, to we the people.

There are those who disagree, I among them.

Establishing the terms of public service, in this case the transparency with which they conduct our business, is the prerogative of we the people, not of public servants.

What business they do outside of our sight and hearing, is ours to decide, not theirs.

The time has come to revisit the issue of open government.
There is no more important nor pressing issue.

It is time to make government as transparently accountable as it will ever be. It is time for the people to tell public servants, that the terms of their employment include candor, forthrightness and honesty, in response to our every question about the public interests or about their public service.

It is time to make transparent accountability in government
an election issue, and the subject of political discourse.