Interesting backstory on the 1995 Kentucky Court of Appeals opinion cited as precedent for denying the public access to the governor's travel records.

The case pitted then Governor Brereton Jones against the Courier Journal in an open records dispute involving access to Governor Jones's appointment calendar.

https://casetext.com/case/courier-journal-v-jones

The appellate judges in Courier Journal v Jones betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the open records law in their introductory comments by focusing on the identity of the requester, the Courier Journal, and the purpose of the Courier's request:

"As is customary in the open records act appeals, we are never informed just what the media seeks and for what purpose. This leads to the conclusion that all these efforts are a fishing expedition upon which to base some speculative publication."

One year earlier, the Court of Appeals issued an opinion directly at odds with Jones, holding that analysis of a public agency's denial of an open records request "does not turn on the purposes for which the request for information is made or the identity of the person making the request. We think the Legislature clearly intended to grant any member of the public as much right to access information as the next."

But in reviewing the governor's denial of the CJ's request, the court seemed oddly interested in the requester's identity and purpose and oddly disinterested in the extent to which disclosure of the governor's calendar would further the public's right to know "whether public servants are indeed serving the public."

The Jones opinion turned on a 1978 opinion of the attorney general in which the attorney general analogized a mayor's schedule to a "yellow pad filled with outlines, notes, drafts, and doodling which are unceremoniously thrown in the wastebasket or kept in a drawer for future reference."

No other pertinent legal authority existed in the state. Into this legal vacuum the court inserted a California case, Times Mirror Co. v Superior Court of Sacramento. Although the California case did not address the preliminary documents exceptions which Jones raised, Kentucky's Court of Appeals adopted the California court's analysis. Our appellate court acknowledged that "California's open records act is *not* totally similar to that of this jurisdiction."

The court's analysis was flawed, driven as much by thinly veiled policy arguments as sound legal arguments.

So why didn't the Courier Journal ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to review the Jones opinion?

Not long after the Court of Appeals opinion in Jones was issued, I received a phone call from an attorney representing the Courier Journal. Mind, I didn't say *the* attorney representing the newspaper. Instead it was one of his associates with whom I had developed a level of trust and collegiality.

She explained that although the Courier vehemently disagreed with the Court of Appeals' opinion, it would not seek review by the Supreme Court.

The reason was a practical one. Governor Jones would soon leave office, and the incoming governor, Paul Patton had agreed in advance to make his appointment calendars public. Most later governors followed suit.

In March, 2019, the National Freedom of Information Coalition listserv members conducted a very informal survey of member states' positions on access to the governor's appointment schedule.

Of those responding, the following states recognize the public's right of access to governors' calendars: Connecticut, Iowa, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Oregon, Idaho.

Virginia, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Florida restrict access.

Sadly, in Kentucky we are stuck with Courier Journal v Jones as precedent for denying the public access to governors' appointment calendars. Travel records . . . not so clearly.