Governor's office is complying with Missouri Sunshine Law

By Henry Herschel

Some reporters have expressed interest in the records-retention policy of the governor's office. At the three largest newspapers, interest has far exceeded accurate reporting. So you will know our policy, it is to meet fully the disclosure standards of the relevant statute (the Sunshine Law, Chapter 610 et seq. RSMo). Our policy is provided to employees at Section 5.11 of the office manual. Further, the policy is consistent with the recommended practices of the secretary of state.

Further, with respect to e-mails, our retention policy is similar to and perhaps superior to that of the attorney general's office: E-mails that are public records are retained. Some that are not public records are not retained. Others that are not public records are retained. Paper documents and digital documents are treated under the same standard.

(Attorney General Jay Nixon's spokesman told The Associated Press on Sept. 24 that the attorney general's office routinely deletes e-mails that are not public records. This is common practice.)

We have demonstrated our commitment to diligent retention and disclosure by responding to more than 75 Sunshine Law requests. These requests were from the media, partisan Democrat organizations and others. In responding to these requests, we have provided at least 3,617 pages of documents, including hundreds of e-mails. With respect to e-mail retention, a topic of considerable confusion in some media reporting, I would not be surprised to learn that we have retained and released more e-mails than any other elected official in Missouri over a comparable period.

Paper documents and e-mails can be public records. But not all paper documents and e-mails are public records. The secretary of state's standards for retention recognized this in defining some records as "transitory," with retention not required.

When these documents are retained, however, they are released if relevant to a disclosure request. We treat all records under the same standard, whether the record is in paper or digital format.

Finally, you may have read about a former employee of the governor's office who was fired for misconduct and now claims he was fired for something else. The employee, Scott Eckersley, was fired for poor performance, routine tardiness, insubordination, threatening his supervisor, using state resources to do significant private work on state time and for his using his state e-mail account for his subscription to a group-sex Web site.

He now claims he was fired over the Sunshine Law. There is nothing that supports his assertion, and we only released documents supporting the true reason for his dismissal after he made false claims to the media.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our policy and practice to your readers.

Henry Herschel is general counsel in the office of Gov. Matt Blunt in Jefferson City, Mo.