Members of Hawai'i's county councils are once again planning on asking the state Legislature to exempt them from the state's open meetings and records regulations, or "Sunshine Law."

That was a bad idea when it was first broached, and it remains a bad idea today.

Their feeble argument is that, as legislators, they are different from other kinds of of government bodies and thus capable of making their own sunshine rules.

After all, the county councils point out, the Legislature has exempted itself from the law.

That's true. And it is also true that the Legislature has written its own set of sunshine rules. But implementing those rules has been a struggle.

In fact, even under the open meetings and records rules, legislators have had to sue their fellow lawmakers for access to information that by rights should be public.

The thrust of the counties' argument is that the Sunshine Law's requirements for public notice of meetings, allowance for testimony and a written public record make it difficult for them to meet with constituents and each other or to attend "valuable informational and educational workshops and forums."

Give us a break.

If there is a problem, and it is surely smaller than it is made out to be, then the cure is to polish the Sunshine Law so that elected legislators can usefully go about their business.

The fundamental issue here is to ensure that the public's business is conducted in an open and accessible way. So amend the law if necessary. But asking for an exemption is just wrongheaded.