Effort to rid Jindal’s ‘deliberative process exemptions’ fails

The House and Governmental Affairs Committee Tuesday voted 6-3 to kill HB 19 by Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) and Sen. Rick Gallot (D-Ruston) that would have removed the deliberative process exemptions from the governor’s office.

Despite hearing testimony that was overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, with only Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive counsel testifying against it, the committee voted against the bill’s passage.

The three who voted to send the governor a message included Reps. John Berthelot (R-Gonzales), Jared Brossett (D-New Orleans) and John Schroder (R-Covington).

The six who acquiesced to the governor’s wishes were Committee Chair Timothy Burns (R-Mandeville); Vice Chair Michael Danahay (D-Sulphur); Taylor Buras (R-New Iberia); Jackson Girod, III (D-LaPlace); Gregory Miller (R-Norco); and Stephen Pugh (R-Ponchatoula).

The action by the committee conceivably made it more difficult than ever to obtain public records from state agencies, in effect giving them carte blanche to operate in secrecy as never before.

One witness testified before the committee that she could not readily obtain something as routine as a copy of state contracts without receiving notification from the Division of Administration (DOA) that a “search” was being conducted for the documents (despite the fact that she requested the contracts by contract number) and that once located they would be reviewed for “privileged and confidential information.”

Thomas Enright, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive counsel, offered an apology for the difficulty in obtaining copies of contracts. “I made a note of this,” he said. “There is no reason you should have problems getting a copy of a state contract.”

But that effort at atonement was easily matched by Enright’s equally simplistic attempt at painting his boss as a protector of the public’s right to know.

As one witness after another cited the administration’s propensity to deny public records by invoking the deliberative process clause enacted in 2009, the committee members listened to witnesses in support of the bill and a few even asked perfunctory questions.

“The deliberative process did not exist before 2009,” said Robert Travis Scott, president of the Public Affairs Research Council (PAR). “It has become somewhat of a virus now with agencies throughout the executive branch claiming the deliberative process. The law enacted in 2009 strictly limited deliberative process to the governor and the governor alone. Yet, these other agencies – and even LSU – are claiming a privilege that simply does not exist.

“We see state agencies marking emails in the subject line as confidential and exempt from public records disclosure due to deliberative process,” Scott said. “This is a problem.”

Others besides PAR who supported the bill included Leaders with Vision, Advocates for Public Health Care, the Baton Rouge Advocate and the Louisiana Press Association.