Louisiana Spotlight: Lawmakers seek to keep records from public view

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana’s lawmakers are considering ways to lock away more information from public view this session, proposing a list of public records exemptions that would chip away at people’s rights to see information from government agencies.
The number and breadth of exemptions filed for consideration represent an uptick, raising concerns that public officials are working to shield too many documents that tell citizens about the inner workings of their taxpayer-financed government agencies.
“People need to know that closing records makes government less transparent and that makes government inherently worse,” said Scott Sternberg, a lawyer who represents the Louisiana Press Association and an expert in public records law.
Of the more than a dozen exemptions filed by Democrats and Republicans, proposals that are advancing in the Louisiana Legislature would hide from view records involving sexual harassment allegations in government agencies, economic development negotiations for port projects, certain architectural licensing information, details about the state’s medical marijuana program and information about student code-of-conduct violations on public college campuses.
House and Governmental Affairs Chairman Mike Danahay, the Sulphur Democrat whose committee reviews bills involving the records law, said “an inordinate amount” of exemption measures have been filed. Danahay attributes the increase to privacy and security concerns raised by technological advancements and electronic record-keeping.
Sternberg said agencies are seeing a higher number of records requests as people learn more about their constitutional rights of access and agencies are pushing back. He also thinks the increase in records exemption requests ties into the national conversation about personal privacy. Some requests filed this year, he said, are in direct response to published news stories.
“A newspaper or a TV station runs a good story and someone wants a bill to make sure that story doesn’t happen again,” Sternberg said. “And that’s a scary proposition.”
The most sweeping legislation filed this session by Sen. Regina Barrow, a Baton Rouge Democrat, would broadly exempt all documents or records involving allegations of sexual harassment or discrimination at public agencies. Gov. John Bel Edwards - whose deputy chief of staff Johnny Anderson resigned in November amid sexual harassment allegations - is pushing Barrow’s bill as part of his legislative agenda.
Edwards spokesman Richard Carbo said the governor wants confidentiality for victims to feel comfortable reporting harassment or discrimination. But the legislation would go beyond that, giving blanket concealment to records about the people accused of doing the harassing, details about how the allegations were handled and more.
Carbo said the governor’s office is working with watchdog organizations to more narrowly tailor Barrow’s legislation, and Barrow held the proposal from a vote last week.
But a similar, broadly-written exemption for documents involving sexual harassment allegations was inserted by Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, a New Orleans Democrat, into another bill by Rep. Barbara Carpenter, a Baton Rouge Democrat, that would require anti-sexual harassment training and policies across government agencies.
The records exemption wasn’t debated during the committee hearing - and the measure was sent to the full Senate for debate, a few steps from final passage.
“It is so vague in how it is written, I am concerned that we would get very little information.
Whether someone in government is harassing someone, that should be open to the public,” Sternberg said. “Hopefully on the Senate floor we can get something that is more palatable.”
Also edging closer to the governor’s desk is a House-approved proposal from Rep. Franklin Foil, a Baton Rouge Republican, that would shield from public view documents that identify anyone who reports a violation of a student code of conduct or safety policy on a college campus.
Though concerns have been raised that the exemption is overly broad, the measure comes amid heightened worries about hazing. Foil’s bill sailed off the House floor with little discussion.
In the Senate, Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain initially asked for a sweeping records exemption that appeared to shield all agency records involving the state’s medical marijuana program. Amid pushback, the proposal sponsored by Sen. Francis Thompson, a Delhi Democrat, was more narrowly drawn to hide “internal procedures,” security plans and transportation plans involving medical marijuana.
Melinda Deslatte has covered Louisiana politics for The Associated Press since 2000. Follow her at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte