Legislative committee votes to gut Louisiana open records law

Shannon Heckt
·3 min read
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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – The Louisiana legislative committee voted to gut the state’s open records law by shielding many government records at all levels from the public.

The bill has been touted as a way to protect the governor and his family but a portion of the bill also blocks the public from seeing part of the decision-making process.

SB482 exempts government agencies from having to share records that have to do with “opinions” and “deliberations” of how government policies and decisions are made.

Gov. Jeff Landry said in a statement, “These laws have become weaponized to stifle deliberative speech.”

“There is an impression by some that they are privy to that information and to put that information out prematurely would be disingenuous, misleading and potentially catastrophic,” said State Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek.

Cloud referenced a Supreme Court case that deals with the executive branch of the federal government releasing deliberative information after a decision is completed. She believes it sets a legal precedent for blocking these records from the public.

Journalists who routinely file public records requests stated if the case was precedent then a judge would have stopped them from getting those records, but it has never happened.

“I am 100% committed to the transparency of final decisions and to communicating with our citizens those decisions,” Gov. Landry stated.

SB482 does not allow for the release of information after the fact or before. It would be up to public officials to divulge that information to the public.

Landry pointed a finger at journalists for not having to share the entirety of their interviews, notes, etc. when crafting a story. Journalists are protected by the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, are not paid with taxpayer dollars, are not elected, and do not craft public policy.

The language of the bill is so broad that deliberations and opinions could mean nearly any document, email, text, or other communications for not just the governor’s office – but all levels of government in the state.

“This exception is a repeal of the public records law. What document is not a part of the decision-making process of your local government? These are our tax dollars, my tax dollars,” said Scott Sternberg with the Louisiana Press Association.

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State Sen. Sam Jenkins, D-Shreveport, referenced the situation of former Gov. John Bel Edwards’ texts between the head of the Louisiana State Police the night Ronald Greene was killed in police custody. If this law had been in place, those text messages that created a public outcry in the case and launched a legislative investigation never would have been released.

Some government watchdog groups and news outlets came out against the bill. They claimed this proposal would make it impossible not only for journalists to hold the government accountable – but also the public would not be able to request information about their local library board, information of their mayor’s travel expenses, construction contracts, and much more.

“This state has to trust that its government is spending the money that we give the state in our income taxes and our sales taxes and your local government groups, the good government folks that you love – all those neighborhood groups that you go to see when they figure out that they can’t get tax exemptions anymore when they figure out that they can’t get the email between the mayor and the mayor’s assistant, where the mayor sexually harasses the assistant – never again,” Sternberg said.

Thirty other states have some limitations on certain public records. None are as expansive as this proposed bill. Despite hours of testimony from both lawmakers and the public showing concerns about this bill, it now advances to the full Senate.

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