Strike one for foul idea

Ink-stained wretches in their purest form wear their skepticism the way they do their skin, which is to say close to the bone and all of the time. Their skin crawls when one of their own (ostensibly) ventures to the darkest of other sides: politics. R. Lee Ware Jr. shows why.

The Republican state House delegate from Powhatan proudly refers to himself as “a former award-winning editor of newspapers in both Virginia and New Hampshire.” Perhaps in that capacity he experienced a scenario familiar to every true journalist and many citizen rabble-rousers, a thing known as the Government Shuffle, which frequently unfolds when people seek public documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Voodoo rituals can be less complex than the one endured trying to pry records from the fists of government bureaucrats sheltering their hind quarters from sunshine. Ware, having crossed lines, sees things differently.

He’s introduced a House bill that would allow public bodies to go to court to seek relief from people “abusing” their FOIA rights. Powhatan County Attorney John Rick pushed the idea and Ware, his Jell-O knees turned to mush, dutifully took the case to the state House.

“We’re not interested in repealing FOIA,” Rick told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We work with it, live with it and respect it.”

Well, gee, thanks for that, counselor, since the public pays your salary and covers every last nickel spent by Powhatan County.

The trouble, Rick says, is that some folks don’t know the limits of reason, some folks including someone who filed 25 FOIA requests from Aug. 14 to Dec. 22. Conveniently, Rick won’t name the mystery citizen. Just take his word for it. Pass along to the unknown FOIA soldier a word of encouragement from us.

All told, the requests would have cost the filer $1,251.75 and eaten up more than 90 hours in staff time. So the request was revised, shrinking the bill to $770.89 and the staff time to 30 hours.

So Mystery Man or Gal covered the cost, right, counselor? Where’s the problem? Rick’s response: “[The FOIA] was used as a baseball bat against us and that doesn’t seem right.”

Forgive us a want of sympathy. Thirty staff hours to fulfill an essential public right doesn’t strike us as a baseball bat. Gosh. Thirty staff hours? That’s, like, almost a full work week.

The bill has moved to the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council for review, so it would be another year before lawmakers weigh the legislation.

Richmond, like any state capital, is a place where bad ideas go to receive the breath of life. But Ware’s for raw, smelly stupidity and contradiction exceeds almost all others by far.

Let us remind him and the attorney for Powhatan County that if the pressures of governments operating in the open are too great, there is a thing known as the private sector. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable there.