Oklahoma's open meeting act

              Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act
Updated by Sandra D. Rinehart, Senior Assistant Attorney General*
“The invisible government,” wrote Walter Lippman, “is malign.” “What is dangerous about it is that we do not see it, cannot use it, and are compelled to submit to it.” Walter Lippman, A Preface to Politics (1914). That critique of invisible government underlies Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act, a series of stat­utes enacted “to encourage and facilitate an informed citizenry’s understanding of the governmental processes and governmental problems.” 25 O.S.2011, § 302.
In pursuit of this democratic aim, the Open Meeting Act (“Act”), codified at Sections 301 through 314 of Title 25 of the Oklahoma Statutes, imposes a num­ber of requirements on public bodies holding meetings. Among other things, it requires public bodies to: (1) provide advance notice of the date, time, and place of meetings and of matters to be considered at those meetings; (2) hold open meetings at times and places that are convenient and accessible to the public; (3) record individual members’ votes on matters considered; (4) take minutes of meetings; (5) hold executive sessions (inaccessible to the public) only for certain specific purposes; and (6) refrain from holding informal gatherings of a majority of board members in which public business is conducted or discussed.
The Act also provides that actions of any public body taken in willful viola­tion of any of its requirements are void. As a result, familiarity with the Act is essential to any public body that seeks to operate effectively.
This section will outline the requirements of the Open Meeting Act, focus­ing on four general areas:
1. When the requirements of the Act are triggered;
2. What actions must be taken before meetings;
3. What procedures must be followed during meetings; and
4. What consequences may ensue from violations of the Act.
Before addressing these matters, two approaches to interpreting and apply­ing the Act will be briefly discussed.
* We gratefully acknowledge former Assistant Attorney General Rabindranath Ramana for his work in writing the original article in 1990.