After uproar, Senate changes bill that weakens open records act. It still shields lawmakers.
A Kentucky Senate Committee approved a bill to weaken Kentucky’s Open Records Act, after changes were made in attempts to make the bill more palatable when its swift passage in the House caused uproar.
The original bill would have significantly weakened Kentucky’s open records law, by limiting requests to residents of the state and letting lawmakers shield themselves from open records inquiries among other provisions. The committee substitute attempted to address some of those issues.
“We think this revised bill is a substantially better bill,” said Amye Bensenhaver, with the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. “We do have continuing concerns.”
The new language would allow for a broader definition of a resident that includes people who work in Kentucky or who own property in Kentucky. It also would allow out-of-state news organizations to make open records requests, something that was forbidden in the earlier version.
It also removed language that would have prevented parties in a civil lawsuit from using the open records law to circumvent the court-supervised discovery process and language that required every public agency to use a standardized open records form created by the Attorney General’s Office.
While the bill passed the committee by a 7-2 margin, Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, and Sen. Brandon Storm, R-London, said they were concerned about the language in the bill that exempts the Legislative Research Commission from open records law.
“I’m a little bit worried about the legislative piece,” McDaniel said. “I’m a little bit worried about the LRC director and the approval there.”
Under current law, anyone can request records pertaining to the legislative research commission or General Assembly. If the director of the legislative research commission denies the request, the person can appeal to a committee made up of the members of House and Senate leadership. If the LRC does not issue a decision within 30 days, the person can appeal to Franklin Circuit Court within 60 days.
In 2018, the Lexington Herald-Leader was denied records pertaining to a harassment complaint made against former state Rep. Jim Stewart, R-Flat Lick. After the legislative research commission did not respond to the appeal after 30 days, the case was appealed to Franklin Circuit Court, where the legislative research commission argued that the court had no right to intervene.
While the Supreme Court ruled in the Herald-Leader’s favor, the new bill would turn the legislative research commission’s losing argument into law.
Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, also said she had issues with the language that exempts the Legislative Research Commission from open records law.
While she said she was comfortable with the fact that the appeal process on open records would be handled internally, she would like to see a spelled out list of requirements for open records like the Kentucky court system created in 2017 after years of complying with “the spirit” of the state’s Open Records Act.
She argued that the way the bill is currently written, it would set a standard of records being private, with exceptions, rather than open, with exceptions.
“In current law it’s everything is open unless it’s confidential, unless it’s personal in nature,” Southworth said. “So the presumption is that everything should be open unless it meets this criteria. The way this is, is upside down. Nothing’s open unless we listed it here.”
When Southworth tried to raise her concerns about the bill, committee chairman Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, said the committee was crunched for time and proceeded straight to a vote.
The bill will now go to the full Senate for a vote.
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 2:45 PM.
