Louisiana Voice

When you peruse some of the recent news stories around the country, it was inevitable that Gov. Jeff Landry, never one to be accused of coming up with an original idea, would fall in line with other red states in attempting to slam the door on public access to “public” records.

Just look at some of the actual headlines:

Worries over secrecy grow as state officials shield records from the public

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders proposes carve-out of Arkansas public records law during tax cut session

DeSantis is squeezing the sunshine out of Florida’s public records law, critics say

Attorney fees proposal could hurt access to Florida public records, watchdogs say

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suspends part of open-meetings law

Arizona’s GOP legislators vote to shield themselves from public records laws

More secrecy than sunshine: Lawmakers push for exemptions to public records, open meetings laws

Senate advances bill that could chill access to public records

NORTH CAROLINA GOP HIDES REDISTRICTING PROCESS FROM STATE PUBLIC RECORDS LAW

NEWS ROUNDUP: ATTACKS ON PUBLIC RECORDS ACCESS IN THE STATES

And just to acknowledge that these efforts are exclusive to Republicans, there’s this from decidedly blue New Jersey:

New Jersey Democrats Attack the Public’s Right to Government Records

Unwilling to take a back seat to any other state in the sweepstakes to conceal actions from public view, we have this in the gret stet of Louisiana:

Jeff Landry pushes bill that would block public from viewing government records

Long time readers of this blog know by now that LouisianaVoice has found it necessary to file lawsuits on several occasions in order to obtain records that are clearly public. We also filed suit, along with four former SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY professors when we were barred from a hearing on their dismissals. State law (currently) provides that a public employee may request that his or her hearing be held in public as opposed to closed-door, or executive session.

All four of the professors requested an open hearing but Southern’s committee which hears professors’ claims decided otherwise – without a vote to go into executive session, which also is illegal (for now). We sued and won a judgment of $1,000 for each of the five plaintiffs but Southern has yet to pay up some five years later.

I use the words “currently” and “for now” because now, like the red states of Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Arizona, Ohio and Texas, Louisiana’s governor is chomping at the bit to exempt public officials from the public records laws.

Landry also wants to disqualify any out-of-state resident from seeking public records.

Wonder why? What on earth could Republican legislators and the governor be contemplating hiding? Surely, they are planning to do something that citizens might object to. Well, let’s see:

• Several top DEQ employees have abruptly quit over differences with Landry’s policies.
• Legislators are taking aim at public libraries, ostensibly over something called “inappropriate content.”
• Landry is determined to make it impossible for those wrongly convicted of crimes to get a new look at evidence – even though there have been no fewer than 97 documented cases in which people have been wrongly convicted of murders, robberies, rapes, and other crimes who have since been exonerated. There certainly are others.
• Our Huey Long wannabe governor wants to remove the job requirement stipulation for approval of industrial tax exemptions because, he says, the industrial tax exemption program “is not about job creating; it’s about capital investment.” That means it’s immaterial if an industry wants to locate in Louisiana or if an existing company wants to expand, even if all the work is to be done by robots while eliminating a few thousand jobs because it ain’t about jobs, it’s about capital improvements.
• Landry has voiced his intentions to hold a constitutional convention to re-write the Louisiana Constitution – over a two-week period. The last constitutional convention took more than a year to craft and Landry wants to do it in two weeks? C’mon! Just try to imagine how much special-interest matters would be shoved through with no time for public comment.
• And Landry showed his colors early when, while he was attorney general, he sued a reporter who had the temerity to request public records.

So, now maybe you have a little better handle on why the guv is dead-set on closing the books on public records. The fact is, he and his Republican legislature don’t want you to see what they’re doing.

It’s only a matter of time before there is an effort to conduct closed-door legislative committee hearings on bills and that the online video coverage goes black.

These people are insidiously untrustworthy, folks, and you’d better wake up to the fact that they’re not your friends.

It’s no wonder that the Washington Post carries this slogan beneath its Page One masthead:

Deocracy Dies in Darkness

Or that LouisianaVoice has chosen to go with this one:

It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark

but unforgivable when a man fears the light