Gerth: If you want to know what government is doing urge Andy Beshear to veto bill

On Tuesday, The Courier Journal reported Rachel Greenberg, the wife of the mayor, had exchanged nearly 700 text messages with a city government employee, many of them directing the employee to do work related to Mayor Craig Greenberg’s social media accounts.

This all seems to fly in the face of Craig Greenberg’s repeated denials that his wife had a staff and was giving orders to employees. She was — his office repeatedly told us — “just a volunteer” or words to that effect.

But I’m not here to talk about the Greenbergs and this arrangement that put workers like Nico Phillips in an incredibly difficult position: Does she do the job her boss wants her to do or do what the top boss’ wife tells her?

What I’m here to talk about is House Bill 509.

If that bill — which is hanging fire in the Kentucky Senate right now — were the current law, Courier Journal Reporters Eleanor McCrary and Josh Wood might not have been able to get those texts from Rachel Greenberg’s personal cell phone that told the whole story Craig Greenberg didn't want you to hear.

Under Kentucky law, messages sent or received by government employees and officials who use personal email or personal cell phones to conduct government business are obliged to turn over those emails and text messages if requested under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

Normally, what happens is if someone requests those documents, the employee or official is instructed by whatever bureaucrat is in charge of answering open records requests to search their phones and email accounts and screen-shot all work-related messages and turn them over.

Despite what it sounds like when State Rep. John Hodgson, the bill’s sponsor, talks about it, they don’t have to turn their phone over to some government employee who rifles through the phone reading messages they exchanged with their daughter having a difficult breakup with their boyfriend or the messages they exchanged with the woman they’re sneaking around with.

And personal emails and text messages like that have never been released — even Hodgson acknowledges that — and they never will.

The state open meetings law already excludes emails and texts that are purely private in nature.

Hodgson’s bill would require government employees to provide government email accounts and cell phones to employees and officials and would require them to use those email accounts when doing the public’s business.

And it doesn’t say anything about requiring use of government phones.

The problem is, employees and public officials could use personal cell phones with impunity to conduct public business in private.

This is the second time in a couple of weeks there has been a real-life example of why Hodgson’s bill is bad.

An audit of what went wrong with Jefferson County Public Schools’ transportation plan released recently found that some school employees were instructed to communicate by way of text because of the mistaken belief that text messages were not subject to the state open records law.

At a recent Senate committee meeting to discuss the bill, Michael Abate, who represents the Kentucky Press Association and The Courier Journal, testified the bill would allow school board members — during a school board meeting where they are supposed to conduct business in public — to text back and forth and carry on discussions in private.

It’s difficult to believe this bill is good for Kentucky in any way shape or form.

Now normally at this point in the legislative session, we wouldn’t need to worry about this bill. If the Republican state legislator passed it, we could count on a Democratic governor to veto it.

It was a Democratic General Assembly that passed the Kentucky Open Records Act a half-century ago and, despite all the Democrats’ faults — and they have plenty — they have stood staunchly behind and protected the open records law for all these years.

While most vetoes in Kentucky are meaningless since it takes only a majority of both houses to override them, this one is different because Gov. Andy Beshear could wait until after the legislature adjourns to nix the bill, a move the legislature couldn’t overrule.

But Beshear, who is looking for higher office and has even been mentioned as potential presidential or vice presidential timber, is siding with the Republicans here.

At a press conference last month, he said his office has worked with the Republicans on the measure and that he favors it.

"This isn't some big loophole where people can hide things," he said.

It is.

"I believe that this will allow searches outside of the individual in question from the organization, from the cabinet, from the board and through their general council that will provide more records, not less," he went on to say.

That’s a flat-out lie.

As attorney general, Beshear oversaw the office that adjudicated open records cases − he knows better than that.

What is Beshear trying to hide?

Is there something on his phone that would keep him off a presidential ticket or stop him from one day being a United States Senator?

Call him up and tell him to veto the bill if it gets to his desk. His number is 502-564-2611.

I’d tell you to text him, but if this bill becomes law, he could just lie and say he never got it.

Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Andy Beshear favors House Bill 509 -- What is he trying to hide?