Not all of the Kentucky Press is neutral on HB 312. The Lexington Herald-Leader weighs in:

"Open records are 'burden' to lawmakers but a boon to citizens. Senate should stop changes.

BY LINDA BLACKFORD| LBLACKFORD@HERALD-LEADER.COM

40 mins. ago

Hey, Rep. Bart Rowland, Rep. Jason Petrie, House Speaker Osborne David Osborne and the other 68 legislators who voted to weaken the state's Open Records Act last week, I'd love to talk to you more about the "burdens" of operating a transparent, democratically elected government.

You might not remember way back in 2009 when the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services found it too "burdensome" to release records about how many children were killed or nearly killed every year by their caregivers. The Courier Journal and the Lexington Herald Leader waged a six-year battle for those records, and the information released showed why Kentucky did and still ranks number one in the nation for child abuse. Did it make Kentucky look good? No. Does it hold officials' feet to the fire, especially when they claim to care about kids? You tell me.

The Cabinet — which in 2009 was in Gov. Steve Beshear's administration — kept fighting even after they had lost, appealing the decision to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which fined the Cabinet nearly $1 million and ordered them to release the records. In that decision, the court called the Cabinet's conduct "egregious" and said: "The face of the record reveals the 'culture of secrecy' of which the trial court spoke; and it evinces an obvious and misguided belief that the Open Records Act is merely an ideal – a suggestion to be taken when it is convenient and flagrantly disregarded when it is not."

Sadly, among many public agencies and elected officials that attitude still holds true, and it's completely non-partisan. Over the years, Democrats and Republicans have been equally eager for us to take their word for it that they always do the right thing on our behalf.

House Bill 312 could be worse, I guess, in the sense that they didn't eliminate the law altogether. But it's a really bad bill; it would shield state lawmakers from disclosure and block out-of-state entities from making records requests. It also lengthens the amount of time pubic agencies have to comply with requests for information.

The bill is supported by the Kentucky League of Cities and the Kentucky Association of Counties, which is understandable considering the stories in the Herald-Leader in 2010 that detailed graft, corruption and even some expense account strip clubs.

Those stories came to you courtesy of, you guessed it, the state Open Records Act.

The Kentucky Press Association says it was ok with the bill, apparently thankful it wasn't worse. Amye Bensenhaver, a former assistant AG who wrote many decisions to uphold the open records act and one of its staunchest defenders, said on Twitter: "A 45 year old law is largely abandoned. An ill-conceived and poorly written substitute, containing multiple internal inconsistencies, is rushed through the House in 48 hours to replace it. This is appalling."

Rep. Petrie, R-Elkton, helpfully pointed out that the open records law is not the First Amendment, which no one has claimed it to be. "What it is," he told us, "is a burden that this legislature, a duty that this legislature, has placed upon itself."

Now under this proposal, the Legislature would lift that burden by letting the Legislative Research Commission, made up of senior lawmakers, be the final arbiter of open records disputes involving legislators. This is apparently because in 2019, the state Supreme Court agreed with the Herald-Leader that its open records request to see a sexual harassment complaint against former state Rep. Jim Stewart was in the public interest. In that case, according to reporter John Cheves "the high court ruled that Franklin Circuit Court can hear appeals on legislative records denials from the LRC."

House Speaker Osborne went out of his way to tell reporters that legislative correspondence and other documents should be exempt from disclosure because they are "incredibly sensitive" and "incredibly confidential."

Let's think of some other "incredibly sensitive and confidential" matters that the open records request revealed about a government elected by the people for the people. There was that secret deal to build a new aluminum plant in Ashland with $15 million in state money invested, along with some shady Russian dollars that has since just about gone belly up.

I'm sure that former state Rep. Keith Hall would have liked to shield what turned out to be super sensitive information that reporter John Cheves dug up with years of work and open records requests to document Hall's numerous ethical violations as a lawmaker. He was finally sentenced to seven years in federal prison for bribing a state inspector to give his Pike County coal mines good ratings.

The list goes on: secret plans to gut teacher pensions, more sexual harassment, "official" travel, and that's before we even get to more local stories. The fact is that nearly every important story that we know about our government starts with the open records and open meetings laws in Kentucky. The people who elect our public officials need to know what they're up to, and too often, those officials have to be forced to tell us.

Plus, every citizen can file such requests, not just journalists. It's really the best and only lever we have to pry open government secrets that shouldn't be kept from us in the first place. Petrie is correct that open records are not part of the First Amendment, which is federal. But as a state law, it's nearly as crucial to the functioning of our democracy.

That so many public officials apparently find it too "burdensome" to deal with would suggest they have some basic issues with their jobs. To add insult to injury, the bill was rushed through with a shady committee substitute at the last minute. Citizens need to contact their senators so the Senate feels pressure to stand for good government and stop House Bill 312 in its tracks."