Governor Andy Beshear's message supporting the veto of Senate Bill 48.
"VETO MESSAGE FROM THE
GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
REGARDING SENATE BILL 48 OF
THE 2021 REGULAR SESSION
I, Andy Beshear, Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, pursuant to the authority granted under section 88 of the Kentucky Constitution, do hereby veto the following:
Senate Bill 48 of the 2021 Regular Session of the General Assembly in its entirety.
I am vetoing Senate Bill 48 because it is overly broad, impractical, and the public safety concerns that led to this bill's passage are more properly addressed through Senate Bill 267. While the public officers and their household members included in Senate Bill 48 deserve protection, Senate Bill 267 provides appropriate protections without impairing the operation of public agencies and infringing on the public's right to information about their government.
I have signed Senate Bill 267 into law, which makes the intentional dissemination of the same types of personally identifying information in Senate Bill 48 a crime if distributed with the intent to intimidate, abuse, threaten, harass, or frighten a person. KRS 61 .878( I)( a), regarding exemptions to the Open Records Act, already allows public agencies to redact personal information where a release of that information 'would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.'
The additional exemption created in Senate Bill 48 for 'public officers' is drafted so broadly as to be unworkable in practice. Indeed, as a former Attorney General I could request my office number be redacted in all public records."
We question the Governor's assertion that SB 48 would have authorized redaction of his office number as a former Attorney General. Neither SB 48 nor KRS 61.878(1)(a), the existing privacy exception to the Open Records Act, prohibit access to a public officer or employee's work address or telephone number.
SB 48 did not include work address, work email address, or work telephone number in the definition of protected "personally identifiable information" required to be redacted from public records upon written request of the public officers or employees identified in the bill.
The privacy exception to the Open Records Act has never been deemed to protect work address, work email address, or work telephone number. Since a public officer or employee does not typically work in secret, the officer's or employee's privacy interest in the information, if any, is outweighed by the public's interest in disclosure.
But this is an excusable error on the part of the Governor. The greater good is clearly served by the veto of SB 48âa bill that was poorly conceived, poorly drafted, a logistical nightmare, and based on a false premise that open records laws are regularly used to locate and harm public officials and employees.
