A word about yesterday's dust-up concerning my authorship of an analysis of the prospects for open government in a Daniel Cameron gubernatorial administration based on his actions and influences as attorney general.
The Kentucky Open Government Coalition, which I proudly serve, is "a nonpartisan, nonprofit corporation established in 2019. Our mission is to preserve and promote the Commonwealth’s open records and open meetings laws through education, outreach, and activism. Our goal is to galvanize supporters of the public’s right to know how state and local government conducts the public’s business through a citizen-based coalition — the first of its kind in Kentucky."
I acknowledge, with no false modesty, that I know Kentucky's open records and open meetings laws like few others -- and certainly "through the lens" of unique experience.
I did, in fact, focus exclusively on open records and open meetings dispute resolution for 25 years as an assistant attorney general. In that role, I also provided extensive training with great enthusiasm if not perfect professionalism. To quote a beloved cartoon character, "I yam what I yam."
As an assistant attorney general, I regularly fought with mid-level managers — rarely the attorney general himself — for the open records and open meetings laws when surrender would have made their lives infinitely easier. Despite occasional accusations of “bias,” this was based not on my personal bias but on the bias our law exhibits “favoring disclosure.” I chose my battles but did not stand down on matters of important legal principle.
https://law.justia.com/cases/kentucky/supreme-court/1992/90-sc-498-dg-1… (recognizing that the open records law "exhibits a general bias favoring disclosure.")
https://casetext.com/case/courier-journal-v-university-of-louisville (recognizing that statutes, like the open meetings law, "enacted for the public benefit should be interpreted most favorably to the public.”)
This did not endear me to management — much less state and local public agencies.
Then, as now, my "client" was not an office holder or a politician, and certainly not a political party. My "client" was, and is, the public.
Since leaving the Office of the Attorney General six months into former Attorney General Andy Beshear's administration, I have regularly criticized questionable open records and meetings decisions issued by the office.
See, e.g., https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2018/06/04/b…
I have also publicly stated, on multiple occasions, that in my opinion no attorney general I served had an untarnished track record on open records and open meetings.
https://www.state-journal.com/opinion/guest-columnist-when-cameron-fumb…
The temptation to politicize what should be a "politics free" process within the Office of the Attorney General has -- on more than one occasion -- been too great.
I have praised public officials, lawmakers, and attorneys general when I thought praise was due, and criticized them when I thought criticism was due.
I make no apologies for my factually and legally supportable analysis.
As for my own "imperfection," an appellate court opinion issued in 2021 characterized my efforts to resolve an unusual hybrid open meetings and open records dispute involving the University of Kentucky — some five years before — as "misguided."
https://cases.justia.com/kentucky/court-of-appeals/2021-2019-ca-0731-mr…
I make no apologies for my pursuit of the truth in that appeal, but I am respectful of our courts — if not the public agency whose actions were challenged there.
As I noted in a criticism leveled against me following yesterday's publication of the analysis of Daniel Cameron's open government track record and what it might portend were he elected governor:
"No attorney general for whom I worked had an untarnished open records and meetings track record. Nor did I. We are all imperfect creatures. Some—clearly—more than others."
https://twitter.com/seansouthardky/status/1661715762162155522?s=46&t=W5…
Did I agree with all of the Attorneys General I served on all legal issues relating to open records and/or open meetings at all times?
No, I did not. But what, in the first four administrations had been viewed as robust legal debate came to be viewed as insubordination in the last four and one half years of my employment. The times changed but I, sadly, could not. As one of my colleagues once noted, I did not have an anger management problem, I had a management problem.
Was my decision to retire in 2016 after 25 years of service to the public precipitated by my frustration with the challenges I encountered in the early days of the Beshear administration?
Yes, it was.
Did Andy Beshear and I benefit from my decision?
Yes, we did.
Andy Beshear soon recognized his error in perpetuating the policies of the previous attorney general's second term staff. He reversed course, permitting a dedicated merit staff to discharge its open records and open meetings duties with minimal interference. He championed the office’s role in adjudicating open records and open meetings disputes.
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/education/2016/09/07/ag-coul…
I found my voice as a private citizen who continues to serve the public by reporting on developments in Kentucky's open government laws, exposing threats to those laws, and assisting those who seek guidance on how to use the laws.
Most important, the internal process for writing and reviewing open records/meetings appeals within the Office of the Attorney General vastly improved — a sort of “Prague Spring” that I observed from the margins.
Would I have survived a Daniel Cameron administration?
In a word: No.
The hope of the three and one half remaining years of the Beshear administration was dashed upon Cameron’s arrival.
None of this, however, disqualifies me from analyzing -- from a unique perspective -- open government in Kentucky. And ad hominem attacks will not discourage me from doing so.
Here is the proof: https://kyopengov.org/blog
