This article by Courier Journal reporter Andy Wolfson confirms that Attorney General Daniel Cameron has reinvented Kentucky's open government laws. In a line of decisions issued by Cameron's office, the attorney general has rejected the public's right to know in favor of the rule that it is wrong for the public to know. So much for "free & open examination of public records."
It is critical to understand that past attorneys general were fully aware that their decision in open records and open meetings disputes did not bind the Commonwealth. The decisions did, however, represent a coherent and, to the extent humanly possible, consistent body of legal interpretation which guided the office's application of the laws and which courts treated as "highly persuasive" through four and one-half decades.
Radical departure from that body of legal interpretation—without statutory revision or an appellate court opinion rejecting it—undermines established understanding and application of the laws, creating uncertainty bordering on chaos that disserves the public *and* public agencies.
In the examples Wolfson cites of Cameron's departure from established interpretation, the underlying law and judicial interpretation is unchanged. Only this Attorney General —in his misplaced self-assurance—believes he serves the public by depriving the public of its statutory right to know.
The law is not a ping pong ball to be batted back & forth through changing administrations.
Cameron's assault on the open records and meetings laws, coupled with lawmakers' open contempt for those laws—the only thing open about them—is the perfect formula for secrecy and unchecked corruption.
Wolfson writes:
"Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and the lawyers under him have done more in his first two years in office to dramatically curtail the public's right to know than any attorney general in recent memory, First Amendment advocates say.
"Indeed, The Courier Journal reviewed more than 130 attorney general opinions and found that Cameron's office has sided significantly more often with government agencies than under his
"While attorney general rulings can be appealed to circuit court, advocates fear Cameron's rulings are undercutting Kentucky's Open Records and Open Meetings laws and encouraging law enforcement and public officials to aggressively withhold records that would shed light on their actions."
Wolfson examines a series of recent open records and open meetings decisions—authored by a member of Cameron's nonmerit staff—that inexplicably depart from longstanding interpretation of the law. This includes recent decisions resurrecting a single agenda driven 2015 decision declaring public records on private devices inaccessible under the open records law and ignoring subsequent decisions repudiating that 2015 decision.
What conclusion can we draw from Wolfson's article in today's Courier Journal?
Our open government laws—already weakened by a hostile General Assembly—will be lucky to survive an attorney general who blithely ignores the statement of legislative policy favoring free and open examination of public records and access to public meetings, as well as the "rule of law" affirming that those laws "exhibit a bias favoring" public access.
