The Kentucky Open Government Coalition today joined Public.Resource.Org in requesting review of the Legislative Research Commission's denial of our joint request for the "Kentucky Administrative Code and Kentucky Revised Statutes in source format."

We assert that the statute on which LRC relied in denying the original records request filed by Public Resource and the Coalition, KRS 7.500:

"compels LRC to release them. KRS 7.500(2) states that this information 'shall be made available in one (1) or more formats and by one (1) or more means in order to provide the greatest feasible access to the general public in this Commonwealth.' (Emphasis added). Moreover, KRS 7.500(8) provides that "[i]n addition to the access provided by this section, the Commission may also make available any of the information identified in subsection (1) of this section by any other means of access that would facilitate public access to the information under terms and conditions established by the Commission." (Emphasis added). In short, the General Assembly has directed LRC to make these materials broadly available in formats that will allow the public to access them."

Continuing, the joint request for review identifies a number of display problems and accessibility errors related to LRC's election to make the records "available in .pdf format on [LRC's] website" only. We point out the necessity of compliance with both federal and state law mandating accessibility in this regard.

But our argument in chief proceeds from the recognition that:

"Promulgation of the law, in many forms, is a requirement for the functioning of our democracy. The Kentucky legislature recognized this fundamental principle in drafting KRS 7.500. A single web site does not fulfill the goals and requirements that are at the very core of this essential function of the Legislative Research Commission. There can be no rule of law if there is no promulgation of the law.

"Instead of placing artificial roadblocks in place to make it harder for other sites to replicate the law, the LRC should be encouraging that activity. Legal scholars should be able to download the entire KRS to use modern tools to analyze the law. Legal aid groups should be able to build sites that compare the laws in Kentucky on subjects such as landlord/tenant law with similar laws in neighboring states. Groups such as our should be able to reformat the law into accessible and usable formats, providing links to court opinions, statutes, hearings, federal law, and other materials cited in the Kentucky Revised Statutes.

"The principle that the law belongs to the people, who have a right to not only know, but to speak the laws, by which they choose to govern themselves goes back to the founding of our country."

The Legislative Research Commission is required by KRS 7.119 to take action "within thirty (30) days of the first scheduled meeting held following receipt of the request for review."

We are grateful to Michael Abate, a partner at Kaplan Johnson Abate & Bird LLP, Louisville, KY, for his legal representation in this effort. And we are proud to stand with public domain advocate Carl Malamud in seeking "release of the Commonwealth's statutes in a version that will make it easier for the public to access them."