A good year for open government in Florida

From The Ledger.com

The 2013 Florida Legislature officially closed out last week when Gov. Rick Scott finished acting on the last bills to reach his desk.

One of the winners of the session was Florida's open-government tradition. Scott and legislative leaders can take a good share of the credit for that.

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"I think it's fair to say this was a good session for open government," said Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, an open-government advocacy group. "We had a dozen new exemptions created — more than in the past seven or eight years — but the governor vetoed one, and most of the others were relatively innocuous in terms of the effect on our constitutional right of access."

Petersen said one of the positive aspects of the session was the "unusual" number of "good" bills that lawmakers considered and passed.

First Amendment Foundation is a member of NFOIC.–eds.