LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky lawmakers advanced a bill Wednesday that would ensure public officials' personal emails and texts about their official business are off limits under the state's Open Records Act.
House Bill 509 passed the Senate's state and local government committee Wednesday on a 6-3 vote and now heads to the full Senate.
A new draft of the bill unveiled at Wednesday's meeting would have gone further, making all records of individual officials such as mayors, county judges and even the governor no longer subject to open records, according to Michael Abate, a lawyer representing the Kentucky Press Association.
HB 509 sponsor Rep. John Hodgson, R-Eastwood, disagreed with Abate's interpretation. Nonetheless, the committee voted not to move forward with the new draft, removing the concern.
The current version of the bill would ensure that all state agency officials, even volunteer board members, have officials email accounts on which to conduct business, and they would be subject to discipline including removal or termination if they are found to use personal devices and accounts to carry out their official duties.
But under current law, anyone who can prove that a mayor or other public official has been using personal channels to conduct public business could persuade a judge to make those communications public, Abate said.
That would change under HB 509, he told the senate committee.
"This law doesn't enhance transparency; it destroys it in a very un-American way, where the citizens of Kentucky will no longer have access to records they've had access to for 40 years," Abate said.
Hodgson said the bill is aimed at striking a balance between the public's right to know and maintaining the personal privacy of public officials.
"This is an attempt to modernize our laws based on the prevalence of email, text messages and other communication," he said.
The bill has gone through many iterations over the last several weeks.Â
Open government advocates also sounded alarms about an earlier version that sought to redefine the state's definition of a public record.Â
The initial legislation defined it as something that "documents, records, memorializes, or gives notice to a person outside the public agency of a transaction or final action," such as a contract or announcement of a public agency's event.Â
That language concerned the Kentucky Press Association and others who warned that the new definition could exempt a wide range of documents that don't constitute a final action.Â
Hodgson later scrapped that part of the bill, telling WDRB News that constituents approached him with "hundreds of examples" of records that could be in jeopardy of staying secret.Â
Marcus Green contributed to this report. Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.Â
