Great column on New Jersey FOI reform effort

A nice look at New Jersey sunshine reforms by Ron Miskoff, president of the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government, here:

The latest, if not the last, episode of corruption in New Jersey's political class has politicians of all stripes scurrying for ways to demonstrate that they are not part of a problem.

They have statements on this, committees on that and postures on the other thing. But it's difficult to put much faith in reforms that start only when television lights go on.

There's a common link between black-market livers and cash sandwiches, between back-channel approvals and parking-lot deals. They all happen in the dark. A culture of corruption takes hold behind closed doors, during private meetings in back rooms.

Well before the current hubbub, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) introduced legislation to update the state's Open Public Meetings Act, the Sunshine Law.