To help stem state lawmakers' annual tide of government secrecy proposals, some of the state's leading news media lawyers favor a state constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds vote of the legislators to pass any bill reducing the public's access to information, whether through records or meetings.

Two-thirds of the state House is 80 of its 120 members; two-thirds of the Senate is 34 of its 50 members.

When given the chance in 2002, 75 percent of Florida's voters approved a state constitutional amendment of the sort. And in a recent survey of 40 candidates for statewide office in North Carolina, 65 percent said they support the proposal.

N&O staff writer Matthew Eisley, who specializes in open government issues, discussed the idea with Raleigh First Amendment lawyer John Bussian, the N.C. Press Association's lobbyist.

Q: What would the proposed constitutional amendment do?

A: It would require a supermajority vote of the General Assembly to pass any bill that would reduce current levels of public access to information.

Q: Why would that be good?

A: Maybe it's just symbolic. But it has the great value of getting people to focus on the public's right to know. There would be real value to having this, because of the number of secrecy bills that get filed each year -- and the number that get through.

Q: Why does North Carolina need a constitutional amendment to achieve that?

A: There's no constitutional floor built in to what information the government can take away from you. There's a federal constitutional right of access to court records. We need to extend that to state and local public records.

Nobody has much shame in filing these secrecy bills. This is a way to say to lawmakers: There are going to be limits.

Q: What are its chances of getting on the statewide ballot?

A: We're moving uphill with this idea. But it's a hill we're going to have to take to maintain a culture of open government.

Q: When will you try?

A: We're getting the drift that lawmakers would prefer to deal with this in the 2009 session. But we're going to be talking about it a lot this year -- and hopefully making it part of the public's election-year conversation. Now is the time to make the voters aware of who cherishes the public's right to know, and name names.