Worried that lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott’s administration are chipping away at Florida’s open-government laws, a coalition of groups is being formed to try to “push back,” a leader of the effort said Thursday.
Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, said a meeting was held Thursday in Orlando to work on putting together a broad-based coalition that will hold a “summit” on open-government issues later this year. “We’ll have a basic platform for reform and a process for pushing back,” Petersen said.
The effort comes after what Petersen’s group described as a “bad” 2015 legislative session. Lawmakers approved 13 new public-records exemptions, with Scott vetoing one.
Source: The News Service of Florida, a member of the First Amendment Foundation