Kentucky's executive branch agencies struggle each day with a body of law that they do not understand, respect, or appreciate.
To these agencies, Kentucky's open government laws are petty annoyances. On an almost daily basis, they "evince an obvious and misguided belief that the Open Records [and Meetings]Act[s are] merely an ideal â a suggestion to be taken when it is convenient and flagrantly disregarded when it is not."
The executive branch's track record on open government compliance is abysmal.
So it should come as no surprise that the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, perhaps in concert with others, obtained copies of security sign-in sheets from the Capitol and the Capitol Annex to identify people who attended public legislative meetings during the 2019 session.
Whatever the pretext/justification for doing so, the Cabinet's actions violated the spirit and probably the letter of the Kentucky open meetings law.
Kentucky's law states that "no person shall be required to identify himself in order to attend a public meeting." There's a clear and understandable reason for this prohibition: To avoid casting a chilling effect on attendance at public meetings and thus promote public participation.
Acknowledging the realities of the world we live in, in 2001 the attorney general approved a challenged sign-in sheet at the entrance to a state office building in which a meeting was, among other state business, being conducted.
The attorney general concluded that the sign-in sheet was "a reasonable security measure and not an agency imposed condition on attendance" at the public agency's meeting. The open meetings decision was not challenged in the courts, and — right or wrong — it stands as precedent for the attorney general's interpretation of the referenced open meetings statute.
But the use to which these security sign-in sheets for the Capitol and Annex were put by the Labor Cabinet — their "weaponization" as public retiree pension advocate Jim Carroll describes it — offends the fundamental principles of the open meetings law.
The rights of individuals — whose names were acquired from security sign-in sheets — to attend public legislative meetings without identifying themselves were violated.
We cannot permit the steady erosion of this and other rights invested in the public by the open meetings law.
We should rage against the new LobbyGuard system for admitting people to the Capitol and the Annex. It makes written security sign-in sheets seem prehistoric.
https://www.facebook.com/419650175248377/posts/471243950088999?sfns=mo
LobbyGuard gathers not just the names of people attending public meetings but all information that their drivers' licenses contain. It is scanned upon entering the Capitol and Annex and generates a photo identification badge that must be worn to enter meeting rooms.
A clearer violation of the right to attend a public meeting without identifying yourself is difficult to imagine.
Like open records, open meetings "is neither an ideal nor a suggestion. It is the law. Public entities must [comply with the law in all particulars] or risk meaningful punishment for noncompliance. Rigid adherence to this stark principle is the lifeblood of a law which rightly favors [openness], fosters transparency, and secures the public trust."
This means *you*, Kentucky Labor Cabinet, as well as your collaborators.
