Coincidence? Freedom of Information proponents may have to clone themselves to appear before two committees at the same time Monday

Both the Judiciary Committee and the Government Administration & Elections Committee on Monday will hold simultaneous hearings on similar legislation that is of great interest to supporters of public records in Connecticut. Both public hearings are at 1 p.m.

Chris VanDeHoef, executive director, Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association, has asked the co-chairmen of the committees to be fair and get together and postpone one of the hearings until later.

“Given the nature of what these bills seek to implement, and the obvious interest the public carries in their outcome, we urge you to work with your counterparts in the GAE Committee to move one of these proposals to a later hearing date,” VanDeHoef wrote. ” We believe that it isn’t acceptable to hold simultaneous hearings on the issue of public access to information which, by it’s nature, will preclude people from testifying on both bills.”