Glass houses, folks
ATLANTA — Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to catch heat for her extensive use of a private email account to conduct official business while she was secretary of state. But the Democrats’ 2016 presidential favorite isn’t the only White House hopeful whose transparency has come into question.
Several current and former governors who are considering a presidential run have found ways to delay or prevent public scrutiny of their communications while in office. That includes Republicans who have criticized their potential Democratic rival.
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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, both Republicans, also criticized Clinton, even though they each used private emails when they held the post as their state’s top executive.
A “patchwork” of federal and state public information laws was written “for the era of paper records” that now “aren’t serving us well” in the digital age, said Charles Davis, journalism and communications dean at the University of Georgia and an expert on public information laws.
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Here’s a closer look at how some of the potential 2016 candidates have handled access issues:
JEB BUSH
The former Florida governor, a Republican, made a splash recently by releasing thousands of emails from his two terms, a move that was required under Florida law. Bush also used a private email account, although not exclusively, and he acknowledged that while in office. Like the former first lady, Bush owned the server. And, just as with Clinton, there are questions over the methods he and his associates used to decide which emails to disclose.
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BOBBY JINDAL
The Republican governor, who campaigned on a platform of providing more transparency in government, uses a private email account to communicate with immediate staff. Those conversations are exempt from public disclosure under a sweeping public records exemption granted to the governor’s office under state law.
In 2012, top Jindal aides and some cabinet agency officials used private emails to craft a public relations strategy for imposing $523 million in Medicaid cuts, but the communications did not turn up in an Associated Press records request. Instead, an administration official revealed them anonymously.
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MARTIN O’MALLEY
The Democratic former governor of Maryland used private emails and his personal cellphone to conduct state business. But his administration also turned over related documents as part of public records requests, sometimes leading to criticism.
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RICK PERRY
In 2013, amid the then-Texas governor’s feud over leadership at the University of Texas system, a Democratic lawmaker’s request of university records turned up emails Perry sent from a previously unknown account identified as “R P.” In one exchange, the governor used the account to blast as “charlatans and peacocks” critics of his appointees to the university system’s governing board.
The Texas attorney general has determined that emails from private accounts are public if they concern state business.
The Perry administration, meanwhile, scrubbed the state email servers every seven days. Perry’s successor, Greg Abbott, took office in January and has since widened that frequency to every 30 days.
SCOTT WALKER
Kukowsi, the spokeswoman for Wisconsin’s Republican governor, touted the state’s “strong open records laws” and her boss’s “very specific policies in place in his office” to ensure compliance.
But Walker previously ran Milwaukee County as chief executive using a private email system, which Walker and aides used to discuss government business, campaign fundraising and politics. Two of the aides were eventually convicted for campaigning on government time as part of an investigation that resulted in disclosure of thousands of emails generated on the initially secret system.
https://www.centralmaine.com/2015/03/07/beyond-clinton-many-2016-hopefuls-have-used-private-email/
As suggested by the linked article, the laws need to catch up with modern communications technology.