More sunshine in Kansas government
Whatever the weather in Kansas on Friday and beyond, governments around the state will operate in more sunshine. That’s because of the new state law that considers public officials’ e-mails about public business to be public records, even if they’re sent using private e-mail accounts or personal devices.
The provision was within a broader bill about public records that passed both chambers unanimously in April and was signed May 11 by Gov. Sam Brownback.
The need for action had been demonstrated in part by Hillary Clinton’s bizarre, risky and potentially unlawful use of a private e-mail server for her communications as secretary of state. More than half the states already had closed such a loophole.
But The Eagle’s Bryan Lowry brought the issue home for Kansans with his award-winning articles, beginning in January 2015, reporting that state budget director Shawn Sullivan had used a private Yahoo account to e-mail a draft budget to two lobbyists and to nongovernmental e-mail accounts of several top Brownback administration officials – communications that fell outside the scope of the Kansas Open Records Act, and occurred weeks before lawmakers would see the budget.
Explanations offered by the administration didn’t hold up to later revelations in Lowry’s stories. He reported, for example, that Brownback regularly did official business using a private e-mail account and cellphone.
Attorney General Derek Schmidt and the Kansas Judicial Council advocated reform.
In response to the law’s passage, some state and local governing boards will need to update policies and change practices. The State Board of Education members, for example, have not had state e-mail accounts. Sedgwick County advised its employees in a June 16 e-mail that “your private e-mail, phone records, texts and social media accounts will be subject to a KORA request if you conduct or discuss county business using those mediums.”
Laws going into effect with Friday’s beginning of the fiscal 2017 year include some other transparency upgrades, too, such as newly subjecting the Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission to the open-records and open-meetings laws and requiring the governor to release the names of applicants for the Kansas Court of Appeals. There also will be live audio streaming of select legislative committee hearings starting next spring.
KORA still has too many exemptions to count, and the same law that ends the e-mail loophole restricts public disclosure of police body and vehicle camera footage.
But praise is due all those whose efforts are making government less secretive and more accountable.
This story was originally published July 1, 2016 at 12:07 AM with the headline "More sunshine in Kansas government."