New study finds five Midwestern states have dim sunshine laws

While every state in the nation has laws that require public access to government records and meetings, in five Midwestern states that were recently analyzed, documents are often kept secret and doors can remain tightly closed.

According to a study released Wednesday by the Citizen Advocacy Center in celebration of Sunshine Week (March 15-21), open government laws in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota have systemic barriers that chill public participation and access to government, which weakens our democratic system designed to be by, for and of the people.

+ Five-state Open Government Report (PDF; 685 KB)

Individual state reports also available.

Source: Midwest Democracy Network

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 and is filed under Access to Information, Government Documents and Political Information, Search News, Source File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.