When House Speaker Joe Hackney put the brakes on legislation that would have awarded legal fees to those who win public records battles against state and local governments, he went against the wishes of Democrats in a big chunk of his legislative district.
The Chatham County Democratic Party's executive committee had passed a resolution in 2007 advocating the passage of legislation that provides an automatic award of legal fees, Dan Kane reports. This was after some of its members were involved in a public records lawsuit with the Chatham County Board of Elections.
The citizens won against the board, but the judge in the case made the citizens pay all but 10 percent of their $35,000 legal bill.
"The entire burden of making sure the public records law gets enforced lies upon the citizens, and that's not fair," said Nick Meyer, a member of the Chatham Democrats executive committee.
Thursday night, the committee passed another resolution again urging lawmakers to pass "legislation requiring the award of legal costs to successful plaintiffs so as to reduce the temptation to play games with the legal process wasting the court's time and citizens' resources."
Representatives for local governments and public hospitals oppose the idea, saying it does not take into account cases in which there's a question as to whether a record's public.
The Senate unanimously passed the legislation on the first day of the session's final week, but Hackney, an Orange County Democrat, did not want it taken up in the House. He said there wasn't enough time, but he also confirmed that he does not like taking legal fee decisions out of the hands of judges.
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MORON
You'd have to be completely clueless not to recognize Hackney for what he is -- which is an outstanding example of ethics, leadership and fair play. If you can't see that, you can't read a STOP sign, much less a sign that says stop and think.