State senators will soon be asked to approve a "compromise" bill that would exempt virtually all of Gov. Jeff Landry's records — and potentially those of his entire administration — from Louisiana’s Public Records Law. Backers of the so-called compromise say it’s more "palatable" than another bill that would eviscerate the public records law as it applies to all levels of local and state government.
"Palatable" is an interesting word choice, given Landry's recent comparison of governmental transparency to dining out at a restaurant. He basically said people don't care to know what's in their food as long as it tastes good. Even if that were true, it doesn't equate to voters not caring about transparency.
Leave it to Landry to cook up a new form of logic: absurdum ad nauseam.
As for governmental transparency, our state constitution requires it, particularly for matters relating to state funds, which effectively reach every level of government. That may explain Landry’s passion for a quickie constitutional convention — one that he would control — to rewrite Louisiana’s charter. The governor is no friend of open, transparent government. His claims to the contrary are flat-out lies.
He's also not the first governor to ask lawmakers to gut the state law that, for most of the past 50 years, has made it possible for citizens to hold public officials accountable. Former Gov. Bobby Jindal weakened it significantly via his Orwellian “transparency” bill in 2009.
Jindal claimed his bill would make the governor’s office more transparent, but the opposite was true — thanks to a gubernatorial “deliberative process” exception that his administration used to shroud itself in secrecy. The law was so repugnant that lawmakers repealed it as soon as Jindal left office.
Landry initially pushed Senate Bill 482, by Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, which would resurrect Jindal’s “deliberative process” exception and inject it with steroids. The exception would apply to all records relating to all decisions by all state and local officials and agencies — not just those of the governor — and make Jindal look like a champion of open government.
Worse, it would prevent citizens from knowing just about anything public officials are up to, at every level.
That would suit Landry just fine. He is, after all, the guy who sued a reporter for The Times-Picayune | The Advocate for merely requesting public records from his office when he was attorney general.
Understandably, Cloud’s bill ignited a firestorm from citizens and media, much to Landry’s chagrin. He whined to reporters about the pushback, culminating in a clownishly puerile “restaurant" comparison.
“When you go to a restaurant, do you go over there and watch the cook make everything he serves you? No,” Landry told reporters. “You don’t wanna know what the cook put in there, where he got the ingredients, how many people were involved in cooking it. All you care about is a good meal.”
Landry's word-salad argument notwithstanding, his idea of a good public records law is a nothingburger.
Cloud’s bill appears dead, but the threat to transparency is far from over. Another measure, Senate Bill 423 by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, is about to become almost as bad.
As originally introduced, SB 423 would limit access to public records to citizens of Louisiana. That idea is bad enough on its face, especially considering Morris is an attorney whose clients include out-of-state mortgage companies that depend on access to publicly filed liens and conveyances.
Morris now proposes to make SB 423 even worse by amending it to include the part of Cloud’s bill that creates a blanket exception for virtually all of Landry’s records — and those of his staff. Morris’ proposed amendment, which the Senate will likely consider this week, would also strip the definition of gubernatorial staff from current law, a move that could shield all executive branch communications from public view.
This is the compromise that supporters describe as more “palatable” than Cloud’s bill.
That’s only true if you prefer your nothingburger seasoned with arsenic and cyanide as opposed to one spiced with arsenic, cyanide, strychnine and ricin.
Either way, what Landry and his allies are selling is toxic to any notion of governmental transparency.