Audio of candidates panel at Sunshine Conference available online

Thanks to The Oklahoman, audio of the candidates session at the recent Sunshine Week conference is available online.

Reporter John Estus' recording of the panel discussion is available in two parts at

• http://s3.amazonaws.com/content.newsok.com/audio/conf1.WMA
• http://s3.amazonaws.com/content.newsok.com/audio/conf2.WMA

All six announced gubernatorial candidates and the announced Democratic candidate for attorney general participated in the panel at Oklahoma Sunshine ’10: Privacy, Politicians & the Public’s Need to Know, which was held at The Oklahoman on March 13.

The conference's afternoon session featured a question-and-answer session with the candidates. Each candidate was afforded three minutes to initially state his or her position on open government and any proposals regarding government transparency and the state’s open meeting and records laws.

Questions included whether to veto pending legislation exempting birth dates of public employees from government personnel files and whether the state Legislature should be exempted from the state's Open Records and Open Meeting laws.

Joey Senat, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

OSU School of Journalism