"Series of AG opinions threaten public access"
The Georgetown News Graphic considers recent open records decisions prompting three lawsuits in three circuit courts and the Attorney General specious defense that in adopting this position he took his cue from lawmakers who "acquiesced" to the disastrous 2015 open records decision issued by Attorney General Jack Conway.
Cameron's historical rewrite is patently untrue.
Lawmakers disingenuously cited the 2015 Conway decision in their self-serving efforts to insulate themselves from public scrutiny in 2018 by redefining the there "public record" to exclude "emails, texts or calls on devices paid for entirely with private funds and which do not involve government email accounts."
Those efforts were widely repudiated as an unabashed attempt to evade accountability through records access by facilitating public officials' discussions of public business on their privately owned devices and accounts. Once called out, lawmakers sheepishly agreed to a face-saving compromise exempting "Communications of a purely personal nature unrelated to any governmental function"—records *which were already exempt" under the personal privacy exception of the open records law, KRS 61.878(1)(a).
The News Graphic writes:
"Cameron has issued several opinions that records are not subject to the state's Open Records Act when those communications are sent or received on a public employee's personal devices(s), even if they concern public business. Cameron stated such records are not subject to the Open Records Act because public agencies do not 'possess' records stored on private devices.
"Cameron apparently based his opinions on a single decision from former Attorney General Jack Conway, issued on his final day in office in 2015. However, Cameron ignores that his predecessor, now-Governor Andy Beshear, repeatedly repudiated the reasoning of the 2015 decision as inconsistent with the plain text of the Open Records Act, which defines the term public record to include anything 'prepared' or 'used' by the public agency, regardless of who possesses it.
"Moreover, Cameron states the General Assembly acquiesced to the 2015 Conway opinion when, in fact, the legislature backed off a proposal to enact that interpretation into law in 2018 when the Kentucky Press Association [and many others] sounded the alarm about the devastating effects that would have on transparency across the state.
"There are three court cases in different courts challenging these opinions and highlight the important and wide-ranging consequences of the Attorney General's new interpretation."
The News Graphic then describes each of the three lawsuits pending in Kentucky's courts—one in the Franklin, one in the Jefferson, and one in the Madison Circuit Court.
