Bill advances to exempt most Louisiana government records from public disclosure

A Louisiana Senate panel signed off on a bill Wednesday that would essentially rewrite state public records law by exempting nearly every record at all levels of government from public scrutiny. 

The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced Senate Bill 482, which would create one of the broadest ever public records exemptions for state government. It was approved a party-line 6-2 vote. The bill from Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, has the backing of Gov. Jeff Landry, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and Attorney General Liz Murrill, all Republicans. 

Some Republicans on the committee made overtures to public records access during the hearing but ultimately voted for Cloud’s bill. 

“I think the public does have a right to know some of those things, and we need to be very, very careful about being overbroad in granting these types of exceptions,” Sen. Gregory Miller, R-Norco, said. 

Public records laws protect the public’s right to know what governments are doing. They’re part of “sunshine laws” that every state and the federal government have put in place to ensure transparency. Journalists use public records to investigate government efficiency and wrongdoing. Any citizen who has an interest in how their government operates can also request public records.

Cloud  said her bill would merely put an existing exemption for records related to the deliberative process created by courts into the law, citing the case Kyle v. Louisiana Public Service Commission. 

One of the state’s foremost experts on public records and the First Amendment said otherwise. 

“If the privilege that is contained within SB 482 were the law of Louisiana, we would not have been getting public records all this time,” attorney Scott Sternberg said in an interview. “I have no knowledge of an existing privilege that is anything like SB 482, and neither does any other journalist or lawyer that I know.” 

The Louisiana Illuminator submitted more than 300 public records requests in 2023. None were rejected based on the court case Cloud cited.

Cloud’s bill was opposed by a wide array of individuals and groups with different ideological leanings. 

Steven Procopio, president of the good government group Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, raised concerns in his testimony that the deliberative process privilege being created by the bill does not come with any guardrails, such as allowing government records to become public after a certain period of time. Cloud’s bill would shield records from public view forever. 

“There are far-reaching consequences,” Procopio told committee members. “This isn’t just the governor’s office’s decisions. This is every state agency, every local agency, Sewerage and Water Board, anything that exists.

“It is a serious problem,” Procopio added. 

Michael Lunsford, executive director of the conservative watchdog group Citizens for a New Louisiana, also raised concerns about the bill’s overly broad language in a statement to the Illuminator. He said he was hopeful the bill would continue to be tweaked as it progressed

Cloud promised committee members she would not move the bill forward unless a compromise could be reached. 

“Sen. Cloud expressed that she wants to ensure that the public has access to the records that they’re entitled,” Sternberg said in an interview. “Based on her testimony, I believe some of the information she was given was incomplete, and I’m looking forward to talking with her about how we can make sure that the citizens of this state can still request the very basic records from library boards, police juries and statewide elected officials just like the constitution says.” 

Several other states have exceptions for deliberative records, but most are much narrower than what’s proposed in Cloud’s bill and often apply only to the executive branch. 

Former Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal had some of the broadest exemptions, but they were rolled back after he left office. 

Landry has touted transparency as a core value of his administration. 

In a special session on crime earlier this year, the governor supported a bill to give the public more access to juvenile court records that have historically been shielded from public view to protect minors. 

“The lack of transparency in our criminal justice system is unacceptable,” Landry said during his opening remarks for that session. 

Despite these overtures to transparency, Landry and his Republican allies have moved to shield records related to matters of public interest from public view. Cloud’s bill would exempt nearly everything.

The Legislature has already passed a bill that would shield state records related to executions and is advancing bills that would make off limits records related to economic development projects, public officials’ schedules and the Governor’s Mansion. 

Additional bills in the Legislature would limit public records access to only Louisiana residents. 

Landry said Cloud’s bill is actually pro-transparency. 

“The public records law is designed to bring transparency to the taxpayer as the government spends their precious tax dollars,” Landry said in a statement to the Illuminator. “During my time as Attorney General we had to hire 2 lawyers that worked full-time answering sometimes senseless requests from people with no connection to our State.

“We have always appreciated transparency when it comes to fiscal manners,” Landry added. 

Cloud’s bill still must gain Senate and House approval.