More fallout from this week's resignation of Oregon's first public records advocate, Ginger McCall, as a former legislator filed a bar complaint against an attorney on the governor's staff.
In her letter of resignation, McCall explained that Governor Kate Brown's chief legal advisor, Misha Isaak, exerted pressure on McCall to advance the governor's policy objectives and block public records legislative reform. McCall maintained she was appointed to discharge her duties independently and free from political influence.
Former Oregon lawmaker Jeff Kropf, executive director of Oregon Capitol Watch Foundation, filed a complaint against Isaak with the Oregon State Bar in which he alleged that Isaak engaged in professional misconduct by "allegedly pressur[ing] another lawyer to mislead the public into believing that she is an independent officer while advocating secretly for his client, the governor."
Kropf alleges that Isaak may have violated a rule that forbids attorneys from engaging "in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation that reflects adversely on the lawyer's fitness to practice law."
It is imperative that the next Kentucky attorney general learn from this and similar breaches of the public's trust and commit to affording the open records staff the independence necessary to discharge this increasingly critical statutory duty.
If the next attorney general questions the analysis or outcome in a decision written by a member of the open records staff, he — and not his surrogate — should invest his time in a meaningful discussion with the staff member with an open mind and not a predetermined outcome.
I expect he'll be pleasantly surprised to discover how much this staff knows about the law. Discussion with members of his own "front office" staff, on the other hand, are likely to yield very little as that staff, in general, knows very little.
The attorney general's name may appear in the signature block of open records and meetings decisions, but this does not give him a license to reinvent or reverse a well-developed body of law to advance his or any other officials' personal or policy objectives.
