Editorial: Public business

Government officials shouldn’t be allowed to use private email accounts to circumvent the Kansas Open Records Act.

Public officials’ use of private email has been making the headlines at both the state and national levels recently, lending support to the Kansas attorney general’s effort to close an important loophole in the Kansas Open Records Act.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been dealing for months with the fallout of her decision to use her private email account for both personal and government communication. This week, Gov. Sam Brownback acknowledged that he has routinely used his private email to communicate with his staff and others about government matters when he served in the U.S. Senate as well as in the governor’s office.

The state issue was raised after a Wichita newspaper learned that Brownback’s budget director, Shawn Sullivan, had used a private email account to send a draft of the proposed state budget to a group that included a registered lobbyist weeks before that budget was revealed to state legislators. The newspaper requested the release of those emails, but the request was denied and Attorney General Derek Schmidt issued an opinion confirming that private emails from public officials — even if they discuss government business — aren’t covered by the Kansas Open Records Act.

Clearly, using private email accounts to conduct government business outside the public eye isn’t in keeping with the spirit of the Open Records Act. To his credit, Schmidt recommended legislation to close the email loophole, and two identical bills have been introduced to resolve the problem. The bills would make government-related email sent by government officials on any account subject to the open records law. Private email on private accounts would be exempt. Time is growing short, but it’s not too late for legislators to advance this legislation before the end of the current session — unless legislators would prefer to preserve a loophole that undermines government transparency.

Various forms of electronic communication have vastly expanded the opportunities for public officials to skirt the provisions of the Kansas Open Meetings Act and the Kansas Open Records Act. The public may never know about many of these communications, but closing the private email loophole will at least give the public access to those communications when concerns over secret communications are raised.