According to legal experts, a new bill filed by Rep. John Blanton would “turn open records upside down.” And if enacted, it would make it illegal for any web site to use the name of any current or former judge, prosecutor, or law enforcement official, or the names of their immediate family members – including the governor.
Sound bizarre? That’s not the half of it.
In addition to outlawing the use of those first and last names in any open records response, AND requiring any content that includes those names to be removed from ALL web sites, RS BR 595 would make doing so a Class A misdemeanor if done unintentionally, and a Class D felony if done intentionally.
From a story by Joe Sonka of the Courier-Journal,
Open records attorneys Jon Fleischaker and Michael Abate said the version of the bill filed amounts to “an extraordinarily extreme state secrets bill,” which would criminalize any newspaper or government agency posting the name of elected officials like Attorney General Daniel Cameron or even Gov. Andy Beshear, who was formerly attorney general.
“This is the most extreme bill that I’ve ever seen over 50 years of doing this,” Fleischaker said. “It absolutely destroys transparency at the very time that the public is demanding more transparency … but it is also an attack on the First Amendment.”
Abate added this would prevent police disciplinary records from being released or reported on, making much of The Courier Journal’s coverage of the investigation into Breonna Taylor’s fatal shooting by Louisville police officers a criminal act.
The Kentucky Press Association issued a lengthy statement condemning the bill. (Both the statement and the bill itself are included at the end of this story.) Here are excerpts from the KPA statement:
“As written RS BR 985 criminalizes such broad categories of information that would inevitably produce absurd and unworkable results. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Blanton, is a retired Kentucky State Trooper and therefore can provide some instructive examples.
- Within 7 days of the passage of his bill, Representative Blanton would have to scrub all personal identifying information of himself and his family—including their names and any other information that could be used to identify them—from his campaign website, www.blantonforkentucky.com.
- The Legislative Research Commission would not be permitted to publish his name as a sponsor of this bill; indeed, it must take down his legislative biography from its server altogether, and cannot publish any information about votes that he takes.
- The Salyersville Independent, Representative Blanton’s local newspaper, would not be able to publish a story mentioning his support of this bill. In fact, it will no longer be able to publish any stories about him at all.
- The absurdity does not end there. Governor Andy Beshear is a former Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This bill would make it a felony for anyone to publish the Governor’s name and address—which is, of course, 704 Capital Avenue, otherwise known as the Governor’s Mansion.
- Beyond the parade of absurdities RS BR 985 creates, the bill will have profound detrimental effects on transparency concerning even the most basic functions of government. The bill will make it a felony for a reporter to publish the happenings of routine court proceedings that are open to the public.
- In fact, courts across the Commonwealth will have to remove the names, photographs, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of elected judges and sheriffs from their websites, depriving the public of crucial information necessary to bring claims to court.
- Likewise, the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance (“KREF”) records the name, address, and occupation of all political donors in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This is an important safeguard against corruption. Under this bill, KREF will be required to scour its entire database for political donations from current or former judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officials and their families and remove all identifying information from public view.
- The bill would conceal from public view any information concerning disciplinary records and investigations into law enforcement conduct.
- The bill will make it impossible to conduct routine business throughout the Commonwealth. For example, the public has always had access to information about recorded deeds and liens maintained in county clerk’s offices. RS BR 985 purports to make those off limits if they contain personal information of a law enforcement officer or their family member, but it does not answer several basic questions about how that would work. For example, how would a county clerk even know which deeds or liens are held by law enforcement officers or their family members in order to redact that information from public records? How would title companies and mortgage lenders perform routine tasks essential to the basic functioning of commerce if that kind of information is hidden from the public?
Put simply, this bill is a solution in search of a problem. The law is so broadly written as to go far beyond its supposed purpose. It can only be described as an assault on transparency and Kentuckians’ right to know what their government is doing in their name. KPA is firm in its conviction that no legislator can support such a draconian bill and call themselves a champion of government transparency.”
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