Indiana Supreme Court won't force legislators to release email

At the center of the ruling is a records request for emails between state Rep. Eric Koch, a Republican from Bedford who represents part of Monroe County, and utility company officials about a bill he unsuccessfully sponsored last year that would have cut how much utilities must pay for excess electricity generated by home solar power systems.

The Citizens Action Coalition and other groups that advocate for open government think emails between state lawmakers and lobbyists should be subject to Indiana’s public records law — and they wanted the state’s Supreme Court to rule the correspondence doesn’t fall under an exemption in the law.

The court agreed on the first point, ruling that the Indiana Access to Public Records Act does apply to the Legislature and its members.

But on a question of whether the justices could or should define “legislative work product,” an exemption to the public records law under which the Indiana House Republican Caucus refused to release the emails, four of the panel members had a simple answer: “This we will not do.”

In the opinion written by Justice Steven David, the court says it is electing not to resolve the dispute because in doing so the justices “faithfully uphold Indiana’s express constitutional separation of power.”