Police secrecy benefits no one. KY legislators should vote no on open records bill | Opinion

With the ongoing erosion of democracy in Washington D.C., right now, it’s easy to see why Kentucky lawmakers would think government is no longer for the people.

That’s the attitude behind a potentially damaging new legislation sponsored by a former Kentucky State Police detective, Rep. Chris Fugate, R-Chavies. House Bill 520 would allow police departments to withhold records if they believed they “could pose a risk of harm to the agency or its investigation,” by revealing information about the case.

The committee substitute makes the process even more drawn out because it would allow the documents to be held throughout court proceedings.

Police already can withhold records if they can show their publication would hurt an ongoing case. But police can’t use “pending” investigations as a blanket denial.

Although they’ve tried.

Last year, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Courier-Journal in its lawsuit against the town of Shively over a police conduct in a high-speed chase.

“The agency must articulate some factual basis for applying the exemption that bears on the record’s content,” the court said.

This bill is a clear response to that decision. It’s easy to imagine blanket denials would then become far more common because release “could” harm investigations.

The public doesn’t request those documents frivolously, says the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.

“It is far more often the public interest in ensuring that law enforcement agencies are properly executing their statutory functions, in gauging the threat to community safety and, in the most compelling cases, in enabling a grieving family to search for and find answers in the face of official silence over long years,” the coalition said.

The public wants records to understand cases like that of Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed by Louisville Police during a botched raid. Or the more recent case of London police shooting a Laurel County man when they tried to serve a warrant at the wrong house.

As a newspaper, we believe it’s good to find out immediately why people get shot by police, but apparently Rep. Fugate disagrees.

If this bill passes, it’s possible that the reasoning behind it could be spread to other public agencies that perform audits and investigations.

It is unnerving the way that Kentucky legislators try to undermine our open meetings and open records laws every single session. Do they think the public knows too much about our government, even as they make the legislative process more secretive with shell bills and last-minute committee substitutes?

On Sunday, we begin the national celebration of Sunshine Week, a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, education, government and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government.

There could be more celebration if our elected officials didn’t feel like part of the problem.

At this point, it sounds almost quaint to talk about ‘government for the people by the people,’ but that is still the tenet this country was built on.

Kentucky’s legislature would do well to support it moving forward.