WA AG Nick Brown on transparency, democracy and Trump

Editor’s note: This is excerpted from Washington Attorney General Nick Brown’s speech to the Washington Coalition for Open Government’s March 14 Sunshine Breakfast in Bellevue.

My philosophy is that open government is a bedrock for all public service.

It is how we build trust in the community. It is how we know how we can best serve the public. If you are being transparent, open (ness) is how the public holds us accountable and we move our work forward.

This is not a new commitment for me. I’ve been a believer in open government and transparency for many, many years.

When I became the governor’s counsel in 2013, we ensured that he became the first governor in history to never exert the executive privilege, a commitment that he made as a candidate.

Because it had never been done before, there were many people in that office who were worried about our ability to function at a high level. But it wasn’t that hard. It wasn’t that hard to maintain that pledge and function at a high level.

And some of the concerns that I hear now, from not only the Legislature but other state representatives and local government representatives, is a fear of transparency that is not born out in reality sometimes.

I think we showed in the governor’s office that you can function at a high level and not use things like the executive privilege, and I’m certainly hoping that we get more legislators who have made that commitment not to exert the legislative privilege going forward because that fear is not warranted. We can operate without using these privileges to withhold some of these records from the public.

Even though I’ve only been in this office for a couple months now, I’ve already seen some of the great work that is happening in the AG’s office to improve transparency and train other local governments on following the Public Records Act. And we’re engaged now in some new rule making, at the request of folks in this room, to make sure we continue to improve the Public Records Act moving forward.

But I know that we have more work to do to improve the work that is happening in the AGs office.

We’ve got some vital programs, including our local government consultation program. It helps communities all across the state, of all size, improve their practices. And last year, we provided trainings to over 7,000 public servants across the state. We have trained hundreds of new public records officers so that they know what is required of them under our state’s Public Records Act.

We are also operating at a moment in time where these issues feel much more serious and acute than they ever have before, and I think that a government’s commitment to transparency reflects the responsibility that they feel to the public. It shows how much we believe in our ability to improve people’s lives, and indeed, how much we believe in this experiment called democracy, because transparency makes it very hard to manipulate reality.

And in this moment, it really feels necessary for me to talk about what we are seeing from the president of the United States and his new administration.

Open government and free speech and the media are all under assault right now from the highest levels of authority. And I don’t say this lightly.

I hope you can tell from my career, I have been committed to public service and this country since the beginning of my professional career. But I feel nervous about our future, because what we are seeing from the highest levels of power in this country, and I know the people here in this room understand some of these challenges and some of these threats and the crisis that I think we are in. But I am frankly stunned that more people in this country are not talking about these issues with the urgency and the seriousness that it deserves.

The president talks about being a free speech president but he is literally limiting access to trusted and independent media and replacing them with obviously compromised reporters, outlets that he personally favors. The president and his administration have deleted entire databases of taxpayer funded information on health, on climate, on civil rights and other subjects that … may never now see the light of day.

In my view, he quite obviously has no regard for the Constitution and some of our laws and our precedents. He despises criticism and tries to silence it at every possible opportunity. I don’t really know how we can reach any other conclusion based on the words and the actions of the president and his administration, because we are seeing it in so many different ways.

And in this moment, in this cyclone of activity, and having gone through my own service in the Army, to the Department of Justice, to the governor’s office, to the attorney general’s office, I keep thinking about two separate thoughts, two separate ideas.

First, I keep wondering what it would be like if President Trump used all of his incredible skills and talents and acumen — and I do believe he has incredible skills and talents and acumen — what if he used those as a force for good? What if he led with hope instead of fear? What if he led with charity instead of self aggrandizement? What if he led with honesty and transparency instead of constant, unrelenting lies? What if he led with love rather than hate?

Not only would we not have this culture of fear and hatred that America is now living through, or the crisis of character that we are now facing across the board, but I keep thinking about all the good that he could be doing to actually improve people’s lives. Because the president’s character matters, because the power of that office has a way of normalizing traits, whether they’re good, bad or ugly, and it’s very, very concerning for me to see the normalization of lying, of cheating and of secrecy and silencing of opponents.

But the other thought I keep thinking about is that Washington state has a tremendous opportunity to lead in this moment and improve people’s lives. If we must … we will keep going as (an) agency back to court to defend people’s lives, to stand up for the rule of law and defend the Constitution.

We will continue to innovate in this state and build opportunities for people in every corner of this great state. We can show that transparency and access are a tool for public good and should not be a partisan political fight. It’s about our right in our democracy to be informed about the reality of the problems that we’re facing, and we can address these problems head-on.