LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Kentucky will add new restrictions to who can seek government records and give public agencies more time to respond to requests after legislators voted Monday to override a veto by Gov. Andy Beshear.
House Bill 312 also lets the Legislative Research Commission, a panel of House and Senate leaders, have sole authority to decide whether to release documents related to General Assembly matters. No legal appeal is possible.
Beshear, a Democrat, vetoed the Republican-backed measure last week, writing that “it defeats the entire purpose of the Kentucky Open Records Act.”
The Kentucky League of Cities and other supporters sought changes to the law that included a residency requirement, arguing that local officials have been overwhelmed at times in recent years by out-of-state requests.
The bill prohibits people living outside Kentucky from accessing documents from school boards, local governments, state agencies and other entities. But it creates exceptions for those who work in Kentucky but live elsewhere, out-of-state landowners and people “authorized” to represent Kentucky residents. News organizations also are exempt from the ban.
The diminished version of the open records act now lets public agencies take five business days to respond to requests, two days more than the three allowed under the current law.
The House voted to turn back Beshear’s veto on a vote of 66-29 Monday morning. The Senate later voted 22-16 to override it.
Those votes came after Democrats in the House minority implored their Republican colleagues to uphold the governor’s action. In the Senate, seven GOP members joined Democrats in voting unsuccessfully to keep the governor’s veto.
Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (D-Louisville) said in a floor speech on the House floor that the bill is a “frontal attack on Kentucky’s nationally acclaimed and admired open records act.”
She singled out the provision that defines legislative records – including some that already are publicly available, such as roll calls of votes and administrative regulations – and says all other requests can’t be disclosed. If a citizen’s request is denied, legislative leaders decide any dispute.
“House Bill 312 allows the legislative branch to judge for itself which records should be produced in an open records request, with no ability for a citizen to appeal that decision -- kind of like the fox watching the hen house,” Marzian said.
The Kentucky Press Association helped negotiate the bill but remained neutral on it. In an op-ed published in the Courier Journal over the weekend, First Amendment attorneys Jon Fleischaker and Michael Abate wrote that they were able to change an original proposal that would have “eviscerated the state’s transparency laws.”
The attorneys, who represent the press association, said one such idea would have broadened the state’s definition of “preliminary” records, which are not subject to disclosure.
More than 30 news organizations, citizens and other groups co-signed a letter from the Kentucky Open Government Coalition outlining the bill’s potential impact on government transparency and opposing it.
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