Anytime someone from government says “We’re going to try to balance the interests of the public and (insert government entity here),” you can be sure the public is about to get the short end of the stick.

So it is in Concord, where Attorney General Joe Foster’s office on Tuesday persuaded a House panel to endorse creation of a special state commission to study ways to recover the cost to state agencies of filling Right-to-Know Law requests from the public.

We can see where this is probably going: Asking people who request public information – which has been created and paid for with tax dollars – to pay for it again, out of their pocket.

New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know Law is already arguably the country’s worst. It’s fraught with loopholes and exemptions and seems designed more to obstruct the public’s access to government than to allow it. Because it relies almost exclusively on the honor system, public access to government depends almost entirely on the arbitrary goodwill of those holding the reins of power. The definitions in the law are so broad that officials go behind closed doors for almost any reason, partly because they know the consequences for violating the law are virtually nonexistent. Frequently, public officials who flaunt the law take a defiant “Sue us,” approach – either implicitly or explicitly. They know that the courts are the public’s only recourse. Sometimes people do sue. More often, we suspect, they give up and go away.

Compounding the problem is the fact that, since those who write our laws are also those who are affected by this particular law, they have no incentive to strengthen it. In fact, they may see it as being to their benefit to make it as weak as possible.

Those in power have long taken advantage of the fact that the Right-to-Know Law doesn’t have much of a lobby. A few ink-stained reporters and editors, perhaps, trying to shed a little light on government operations, but that’s about it.

We suspect that if a criminal law – or one governing real-estate transactions – were constructed as weakly as the Right-to-Know Law, the public would storm the Statehouse.

The AG’s proposal to examine how state agencies might recover the costs of fulfilling Right-to-Know requests is driven by a concern that unreasonable or frivolous demands distract from the business of state agencies that have other things to do. That’s a legitimate concern, but not reason to weaken the law further. Ironically, the AG’s proposal is being tacked onto a bill that would actually strengthen the law and require all final government contracts be considered public documents.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Marjorie Smith, D-Durham, said of the Right-to-Know Law that “It’s time to take another look, see what is working well, see what might be done to improve it.”

Translation: The public is about to take it on the chin.

State Rep. Rick Watrous, D-Concord, suggested that a wide open study of the law is needed and that the review proposed by the AG’s office appears tilted against access. “Right-to-Know in New Hampshire is already weak,” Watrous said. “If we make it more expensive for citizens, we will make it even more restrictive.”

But Rep. Robert Rowe, a Republican from Amherst, said one should not assume that lawmakers would blindly accept what a commission might recommend.

“We have been extremely careful and cautious with regards to weakening the Right-to-Know Law,” Rowe stressed.

Even taking the gentleman from Amherst at his word – and we have grave doubts – it’s worth noting that not weakening a law is not exactly the same thing as strengthening it.

Waltrous is right. The law is pathetically weak and needs a broad review and probably an overhaul. What it doesn’t need is another piecemeal amendment that makes state agencies the latest favored category in the Swiss cheese that is the Right-to-Know Law.

But if lawmakers insist on taking up questions surrounding the law, they could start with this: When is it the public’s turn to get a little favorable treatment?

Newsletter