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Richardson Responds to Sunshine Campaign Survey

Published: December 20, 2007
Last Updated: December 26, 2007

Contact:
Debra Gersh Hernandez
Coordinator, Sunshine Week
dghernandez@asne.org
703-807-2100

For Immediate Release: Dec. 20, 2007

Washington — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Democratic candidate for president, says he supports open government and as president "would ensure that the obsessive secrecy of the Bush administration will be rolled back."

Richardson, responding to the Sunshine Week 2008: Sunshine Campaign Questionnaire, noted, "The public must and will have access to information about what its government is doing, and in the absence of a compelling reason, it will have that access." Richardson is the first candidate to submit his answers to the survey.

The Sunshine Campaign is a project of the Sunshine Week 2008 alliance that is working to bring a discussion of open government issues to all election campaigns in 2008, from president to local city council. Recently, questions on open government were featured in both the Democratic and Republican debates hosted by the Des Moines Register.

"It's important for the American people to know where each of the candidates stand on public access to information and the people's right to know," said ASNE Freedom of Information Committee Co-chair David Westphal, Washington editor of McClatchy Newspapers. "We hope that these surveys will add to the overall picture of candidates' views on open government."

Richardson, who in 2005 and 2006 issued gubernatorial proclamations declaring Sunshine Week in New Mexico, also said in the survey that he believes the "federal government has become far too secretive, and that must change."

He also supports a reporters' shield law protecting confidential sources, would reverse an executive order limiting release of presidential records, and would "use the bully pulpit of the presidency to protect the First Amendment rights of all scientists, including federally funded ones, to release all information to the public in the absence of a compelling reason to withhold it."

The completed survey is online here.

Sunshine Week is a non-partisan open government initiative led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, with online and broadcast media, public officials, celebrities, civic groups, non-profits, libraries, schools, religious leaders and others. It is primarily funded by a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.