It's one of the worst-kept secrets at the State Capitol. When legislative leaders need to huddle with party members for a quick strategy session — "caucusing," in their lingo — they typically try to do so out of earshot of the press and public. And it turns into a game of cat and mouse.

The meetings might involve head counts to gauge support for a bill before a key vote; going over talking points to sell the party's position on a touchy issue; last-minute amendments to stop unfavorable legislation — the kinds of things members of one party don't want to telegraph in advance to their counterparts across the aisle.

So, they'll herd their members into the majority leader's or minority leader's office — both parties do it, of course — and post a junior staffer outside to serve as a lookout. Any reporter from the Capitol press corps who comes nosing around has to be let in under Colorado's open-meeting law. But the objective is to finish the meeting before the press finds out.

It's in that context that a couple of freshman Democratic state lawmakers have filed suit against legislative leaders in both parties in order to end the practice, as reported Monday by Colorado Politics. Their quest may seem a long shot — and perhaps a bit naive in light of their relative inexperience with Capitol politics as usual — but there's arguably also some merit to it.

Granted, it's unlikely any such litigation will end the legislature's routine efforts to meet on the sly. The strategies and tactics sorted out in the meetings are central to shaping legislation and squaring off over the issues in the legislative branch of government. And keeping it all on the down-low is probably essential to the success of those strategies and tactics.

And it's worth pointing out that the actual proceedings of the legislature itself as a lawmaking body — the committee hearings and the floor sessions of the full House and Senate, where policy is hammered out, debates drone on for hours and votes are tallied — are subject to much stricter scrutiny. All are by definition open to the public. Anyone can listen in via the internet. Their deliberations are entered into the public record, researchable on the web.

Yet, the law-skirting of the caucuses — even if it's mostly to conceal internal gamesmanship between the two parties — may warrant a review in its own right. Even if it's only to make it better jibe with the law while still affording each party the ability to strategize effectively. One of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, state Rep. Bob Marshall, D-Highlands Ranch, seemed to allow as much.

"We're blatantly and brazenly violating (Colorado's open meeting law) constantly," Marshall told Colorado Politics. "If they had to strictly follow it as written, it is very unworkable to do it. But the right answer isn't 'we don't like this law because it's hard to comply, so we just won't comply.' ... This is not right, we need to fix it." He said the ultimate goal is to adjust Colorado's open meeting law to a version that is more workable for the legislature, instead of ignoring it.

A hallmark of democracy must be transparent government. At the same time, partisan lawmaking bodies like the legislature must allow parties to effectively advance their philosophical agendas — which can involve planning in private.

It goes with the competition inherent in our adversarial political system. Members of one team can't listen in on the other team's huddle on the gridiron, after all.

The lawmakers' legal action might lead to a more precise rendering of the law — which could mean lawmakers no longer would have to caucus with a wink and a nudge.

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