Some lawmakers in the General Assembly think it’s their job to do the people’s business ... in private.
As ridiculous as it sounds, members of the Indiana House have been secretly working to exempt themselves from a public records law that entitles the public to “full and complete information regarding the affairs of the government.”
This comes in the midst of a lawsuit by the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana and the Energy and Policy Institute, which filed an open records request in January seeking correspondence regarding a solar power bill.
Specifically legislators are attempting to keep their internal correspondence — including email, voice mail, text messaging, notes and other records from public view. And they’re doing so by furtively changing the definition of “work product.”
Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act, passed in 1983, offers one specific exemption for “the work product of individual members and the partisan staffs” of the legislature. Lawmakers are using this exemption in an effort to shield nearly all their communication from public.
This after Luke Britt, Indiana’s public access counselor, had offered up the advisory opinion that the open records law does apply to lawmakers. Britt also noted that the act allows them to shield some documents as work products, but that legislators should make transparency the goal.
Clearly, House members have ignored Britt’s advice.
According to Steve Key, executive director and legal counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association, the legislators are “trying to define everything they do as work product, which is very unfortunate.”
It’s also a misuse of the power and authority given by the Hoosiers who put them in office. And if lawmakers find abiding by the rules and responsibilities that come with public office too restrictive, a return to private life can be easily arranged by voters.