July 14, 2008

Selectively Personal

Post updated with critical new information at end.

The Bredesen administration recently claimed - without any support in state law - that some emails created by state government employees on state government computers aren't public records (even though state law clearly says they are) because the emails are "personal" rather than related to state business.

The Bredesen administration made that claim in refusing to release records sought by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research - in order to stymie the TCPR's investigation into the backstory of Bredesen's wife's $8 million taxpayer-funded fancy underground ballroom at the governor's mansion.

Understand this: the law makes no such exception or distinction that allows the administration to refuse to release emails because they are "personal." Even the Nashville Scene, which is in the governor's corner most of the time, knows Bredesen is wrong about this.

Bredesen's spokesperson, Lydia Lenker, also knows that emails on state computer servers are public record and the administration can't refuse to release something because it is "personal." In fact, she uses that very explanation today to defend the administration's sharing of a personal email from my boss, Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Robin Smith, to Gov. Bredesen. As she says in a story in today's Knoxville News Sentinel:

"Anyone who e-mails the governor, whether they realize it or not, that document becomes a public document. That's sometimes a little jarring for people to learn."

Now that the governor's spokesperson has admitted that, perhaps she'll get on with the business of making sure the administration has fully complied with the Tennessee Center for Policy Research's open records request.

Somehow, I rather doubt they will, though. After all, it is the Bredesen administration which routinely ignores open records requests that it deems inconvenient. After all, it is the Bredesen administration which, as a matter of policy, shredded documents in order to protect staffers accused of sexual harassment.

But at least now we know where the Bredesen administration stands on whether personal emails on state computers are to be released or not. If it might make the administration or especially the governor's wife look bad, it's personal and not subject to the state's open records laws. But if the administration thinks releasing the document will hurt a political rival, the personal is made political - and public.

That's what happened last week. The administration released a political opponent's personal email in order to participate in a Nashville media outlet's baseless smear of one of the administration's political opponents, a smear based on a fallacious linking of two unconnected events and a deliberate misrepresentation of the content of the email - reporting the email said one thing when it clearly said the opposite.

Update: Tom Humphrey reports that the Tennessee Democrat Party is responsible for the publication of the private email. The big unanswered question is, who in the governor's office tipped the Tennessee Democrat Party that the email existed, so that they would file an open records request to get a copy? The email was sent to just two people in the governor's office - the governor and his spokesman, the aforementioned Lydia Lenker. It was later shared with another Bredesen staffer, Bill Mason, Director of Community Affairs, Office of the Governor.

Mason's name appears in the state computer server code at the bottom of the email as reproduced on the blog Post Politics, indicating he shared the email with either the editor of Post Politics directly, or with the Tennessee Democrat Party.

So much for Lenker's contention that the governor's office didn't release the document.

The question is, how did the email get from Mason to Tennessee Democrat Party spokesman Wade Munday, who would have had no way of knowing the email existed (and, thus, wouldn't have filed an open records request for it), unless the governor's office made an effort to get the information out.

As they say in the news biz, developing...