| Governor PBJ campaigned for Governor on the reforming Louisiana's image. One of the policy platforms he ran on was: (pdf alert)
Provide citizens on-line, easy-to-understand access to all sectors of state government
We should upgrade Louisiana's sunshine laws to improve access to public records and meetings by expanding Internet-based access to filings,
reports, and announcements in all departments.
Presumably, he meant to include the Governor's Office in "state government." Since the special session that he called last year to reform the ethics laws, and let the sunshine filter into the state government, he has touted the reforms he pushed through the Legislature.
However, he has restricted public access to documents, filings, and reports that his office deals with. And I don't just mean his office, but the entirety of the Executive Branch of the Louisiana government. Current law allows for Governor PBJ to shield documents under the custody of his press secretary, legislative director, director of boards and commissions, and other officials on his executive staff, as well as all records in the Homeland Security Office as well as the State Military Department.
Trying to get a Freedom of Information Act request out of the Governor's office is so difficult that the Citizen Access Project, a program undertaken by the Marion Brechner Institute for Open Government at the University of Florida, declared that Louisiana's open records laws, "particularly when applied to the Governor's office, [are] the darkest sunshine laws" in the nation.
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