St. Cloud Times. March 19, 2021.
Editorial: Even after Sunshine Week keep pushing for open records, transparent government
Saturday wraps up Sunshine Week, designated in 2005 to highlight one of the bedrock tenets of democracy: Government is accountable to the people in almost all of its actions.
Journalists and government watchdogs created and champion Sunshine Week. But we think there should be more people who are in on the party.
Sunshine Week was started in 2005 to highlight the crucial role of open government and freedom of information to create accountability at local, state and federal levels.
While there are laws governing access to government and agency records and proceedings at all level, those laws are frequently broken whether by accident or design. Few citizens know their rights to ask for and receive information from City Hall, the county board, the state agency or the U.S. Congress. So they don’t ask.
We, the people, have elected our government leaders to do a job. As the hiring managers, we believe we the people - journalists or not - should be able to check in on their progress and process. It should be affordable and it should take months or years to receive information.
In situations without accountability, it’s easy to get away with whatever you want. Even when no wrongdoing is intended, secrecy breeds error. Open records, and letting the sun shine into the nooks and crannies of our not-always-transparent government, ensures anyone can check up on our leaders or educate themselves about all kinds of topics for which the government collects data.
Why are open meetings and open records important? It lets us know what our elected officials are up to - what laws they are working to pass (or block); how much they make each year (and who donates to their campaigns); how much of our money they’re spending and on what; and who is doing what to whom and how, all in the people’s name.
What stories freedom of information impacts
Over the past few years, we’ve brought you numerous stories and projects that were made possible by freedom of information laws and open meeting laws.
Thousands of you searched our database to see who received Paycheck Protection Program loans in Minnesota. Then we reviewed per diem payments to state legislators to tell you how much Central Minnesota lawmakers have requested last year.
Our journalists dug into county salaries to tell you who gets the most overtime, and looked through department of health maltreatment reports to find elder abuse in our area. We check into restaurant inspection records.
All of our crime and courts coverage comes to you thanks to open record laws, which specifially demands disclosure of law enforcement information to anyone, upon request, with a few narrow exceptions. The ability to check on who is in custody in county jails and the freedom to request charging documents are encoded in state law as protection against both law enforcement and prosecutorial overreach. Secret imprisonment and prosecution is not something America allows.
Even a small story, like the one last week about a new restaurant coming to town, can stem from government records. We were able to determine the probable location of Raising Cane’s after a search of city building permits.
As a reader, a community member and a person living in the U.S., what should Sunshine Week mean to you? It should be a reminder that the government and all of its agency works for you, not the other way around. Transparency is how that happens.
Urge your legislators to continue supporting government openness. Ask them introduce legislation that improves access to records. Ask them to let the sun shine in.
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Mankato Free Press. March 22, 2021.
Editorial: Lawmakers need to re-examine sex offender registry
When this mother speaks on this particular issue, know that every one of her words is valuable and chosen carefully.
Patty Wetterling lost a son to the actions of a sex offender. But she now has misgivings about a sex offender registry she helped create.
Her concerns are worthy of attention.
Wetterling’s son Jacob was abducted and killed in 1989 in central Minnesota by an area man. After Jacob’s disappearance, Wetterling worked to establish a sex offender registry that would help flag offenders for law enforcement. (The man who 27 years later admitted to Jacob’s abduction and killing would not have actually been on such a registry because he’d never been charged or convicted of a sex crime.)
Today Wetterling has concerns that the registry, drastically changed over the years by the Legislature to aggressively capture more offenders, has overreached.
Minnesota’s list now includes over 18,000 registrants, including juveniles, some not much older than 11-year-old Jacob when he was kidnapped, the Star Tribune reports.
Wetterling and others are urging the Legislature to consider reforming the registry so it doesn’t cast such a wide net, snagging a high number of juvenile offenders, some who haven’t even had a conviction or had committed more minor offenses, such as public urination.
Wetterling herself has been approached by families who don’t want to report a sexual offense between two child family members because they don’t want the child to end up on a registry. In that scenario, no one gets the help they need, she said.
And getting off the list is difficult. Attorney Jim Fleming, a former chief public defender in Mankato who now works in Ramsey County, told the Star Tribune that a man in his 30s came to him because he was put on the registry as a 13-year-old. His 10-year period on the list restarted after a disorderly conduct charge, and then again after another unrelated charge. Fleming had to tell the man there was no way to appeal his time on the list.
Teens, who are still in the midst of brain development, have some of the lowest rates of reoffending. Many have the potential and time to change their destructive patterns or learn that their behavior is not acceptable and change it. Wetterling and other child advocates want to make sure those kids get a chance to do that.
The Legislature needs to review the registry and change it so that youth who don’t belong on the list stay off of it.
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Minneapolis Star Tribune. March 21, 2021.
Editorial: Finding new solutions for racial health gaps
With help from Blue Cross, the U will be at forefront in addressing troubling health disparities.
A painful but pioneering infant mortality study is a challenge we “can’t walk away from,” as Minnesota DFL Rep. Kelly Morrison, who’s also a physician, aptly put it during a recent legislative briefing.
Black babies in the U.S. have long been at much higher risk of dying than white newborns. But a study from a team that included two University of Minnesota researchers yielded a stunning finding: The hospital death rate for Black infants drops by a third when a Black doctor cared for them during the critical period after delivery. The study garnered national headlines last year and appeared in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals - and rightfully so. The distressing differences in infant mortality have long been a shameful public health crisis. The findings provide a groundbreaking perspective on the roots of this racial gap and should drive innovation to close it.
The work to do this is just beginning, but a timely $5 million donation will ensure that it will continue. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota has commendably provided a sizable gift to establish the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the U’s School for Public Health.
Rachel Hardeman, an associate U professor renowned for her research on reproductive health equity, will lead this new center. Along with the U’s Aaron Sojourner, she was one of four authors on the study linking Black infants’ health to having a Black doctor. The study yielded critical questions that still need to be answered about why the provider’s race matters.
The center will be one of the first of its kind. The work that will happen there will lead to health improvements across the nation. It will also address a grim reality behind rankings over the years that have declared Minnesota one of the healthiest states in the nation.
“When we dive deeper into the data, it is clear that Minnesota has some of the greatest health disparities in the country between whites and people of color and American Indians. This has been the case for decades,” state Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm wrote in a 2019 letter to lawmakers.
The new center will investigate health gaps differently. As a fact sheet for the new center said, it will move beyond asking, “What’s wrong with people of color that makes them die younger … and suffer more illnesses?” Instead, researchers will take a systemic approach, asking, “How do systems, policies and social structures combine to create the conditions for poor health?”
The study documenting “concordance” between Black infants’ clinical outcomes and their doctor’s race is an example of the value of looking through this lens. Policy solutions could include efforts to encourage more people of color to become medical providers.
A worthy bill in the Minnesota Legislature is an early example of how research like this can inspire other solutions. DFL Rep. Ruth Richardson is the chief author of HF 660, the Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act. It would require continuing education for obstetric care providers on racism and implicit bias. In addition, it would expand the state’s maternal health research, gathering data not just about maternal mortality but health problems mothers experience after birth.
The investment in the new center “will go a long way to helping policymakers and clinicians alike recognize and dismantle structural racism and the harm it perpetuates,” said Dr. Nathan Chomilo, a board member for Minnesota Doctors for Health Equity.
The center will put Minnesota at the forefront of addressing racial health gaps. Blue Cross merits praise for recognizing Hardeman’s vision for the center and then funding it. We hope the insurer continues its support beyond the generous one-time donation and that others will join the effort.
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