Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who touted transparency and in his push to Louisiana's criminal justice system this year, on Wednesday backed an effort 聽the state's transparency laws by barring any documents involved in government planning from public view.
That legislation, , would apply to emails, messages and any other records produced by officials in the course of making government decisions. It earned approval Wednesday from the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee along with another public records-focused bill,聽, which seeks to require identification checks on people who file requests.聽
The bills faced withering pushback from free speech advocates and press freedom groups who warned that SB 482, in particular, would place a broader and more-restrictive blanket of secrecy over government affairs than in other conservative states that have considered of public records access.
"There (will be) far-reaching consequences," said Steven Procopio, president of the 香港六和开奖历史记录-based Public Affairs Research Council, a nonpartisan good-government group. "This is not just the governor's office 鈥 it's any state agency, any local agency. It is a serious problem."
In a lengthy statement issued before the hearing, Landry argued that records from government agencies' deliberations have been "weaponized" to "stifle deliberative speech." He said that "all public officials" have complained about the law being "abused."
"The citizens of the state overwhelmingly chose me for this job to reform failures in state government," said Landry, who did not discuss public records access during his gubernatorial campaign. "This is yet another reform.鈥
Asked for examples of the law being "weaponized" and of complaints from public officials about its use, Landry's press secretary, Kate Kelly, declined to comment.
Landry has touted transparency and freedom of speech as core values of his nascent administration. He supported a bill in a February special session to reveal some youth court records in the name of transparency despite blistering pushback from advocates who warned it would subject children accused of crimes to long paper trails detailing their criminal histories.
Also in the February session, Landry's office supported efforts to pare back access to death penalty records through another bill that will shield lethal injection drug documents from public view beginning in July.
And he has lashed out at scrutiny through the public records process in the past, including when he sued a reporter for The Advocate | The Times-Picayune over a request she made in 2021 while Landry was Louisiana's attorney general.
Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, during the hearing over her SB 482 Wednesday argued that public officials are subject to an unfair standard, likening "deliberative" emails and other communications they send while discussing public policy to reporting by journalists, who are not public officials.聽聽
Her bill would strike from the list of open records all documents that detail planning in government work. It would shield documents containing "advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations鈥 that feed into any decision or policy at all levels of government, from parish officials to the governor's office.
Joining Landry to support the bill were Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and Attorney General Liz Murrill.聽
Lee Zurik, a journalist for WVUE FOX 8 in New Orleans, told the Senate committee he files about 450 public records requests each year. Those records have fueled聽 on the collapse of New Orleans' Hard Rock Hotel, he said 鈥 stories that wouldn't have been written if the bill had been in effect.聽
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 about clearing up the law 鈥 this is about blocking the media, and more importantly, blocking your voters, your constituents, from records that they funded,鈥 he said.聽
The committee passed Cloud's bill 6-2 after Cloud pledged to have discussions about putting the bill in a "better posture" before she brings it to the Senate floor. New Iberia state Sen. Blake Miguez's SB 502 passed without objection; a debate on SB 423, carried by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, was delayed.
Though Gov. Bobby Jindal in 2009 backed a law that allowed his office to hide records under similar exemptions, Cloud's bill is broader than past legislation, opponents of the bill say.
Jindal sold that measure as a tool to subject the governor鈥檚 office to sunshine rules that hadn't applied to it in the past. His aides and appointees used it instead to shroud executive-branch agencies in secrecy by claiming that certain requested records were part of "deliberative" policy discussions and thus off limits.
Lawmakers agreed to reverse the rule after Jindal left office.
Cloud鈥檚 bill resembles a measure filed last month in the state House that sought to exempt those same 鈥渄eliberative鈥 records produced specifically by the governor鈥檚 office from public records law, akin to the Jindal-era legislation. Rep. Michael Melerine, R-Shreveport, sponsored that bill but withdrew it from the House's files before the session began.
Here's how the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee voted Wednesday on Cloud's bill, SB 482:
- Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter (R-Port Allen): Yes
- Sen. Blake Miguez (R-New Iberia): Yes
- Sen. Gary Carter (D-New Orleans): No
- Sen. Mike Fesi (R-Houma): Yes
- Sen. Sam Jenkins (D-Shreveport): No
- Sen. Gregory Miller (R-Norco): Yes
- Sen. Mike Reese (R-Leesville): Yes
- Sen. Glen Womack (R-Harrisonburg): Yes
