According to an Associated Press story, Governor Matt Blunt’s office is telling investigators appointed by Attorney General Jay Nixon chasing down allegations from Scott Eckersley about Sunshine Law violations that it will cost around $540,000 for the requested records. This is based on an estimate that it would take 14,620 hours of staff time to go through all the records to obtain e-mails from January 1, 2007. As you would expect, the investigation team is crying foul: “We don’t believe that we are required to pay the same government for public records or documents that should be part of the public domain to begin with.”
Well, the current Sunshine Law says that when you make requests for information you can charge the requesting party for staff time and costs. We may not like it but it’s the law.
I know this is a very politically charged issue for most but I’m looking at it from a different angle. I don’t think the government should make anyone under investigation pay for the cost of the investigation into them before anyone is convicted of any charges. At the bare bones level, this would be the same as Sheriff Jack Merritt or Chief Lynn Rowe showing up at your door and telling you that you have to print out every e-mail you sent since January 2007 but you have to do it on your own time, at your own cost, with your own materials and then give it to them so they can look through and try to find something to convict you.
Yes, they’re both government entities and it’s all taxpayer dollars but each department has a different budget. For the sake of integrity of the process, the prosecutors should pay any costs involved so that we have a solid record of the cost of this investigation. For the sake of discussion, let’s say the cost is accurate. That means it’s going to cost $540,000 for this information and there’s no reason that should come out of the office of the Governor’s budget instead of the Attorney General’s office.
If the cost is excessive, let a judge lower it. However, I still don’t believe it’s fair to ask someone being investigated to cover the costs of their investigation when nothing illegal has been proven in a court of law.
Maybe the investigative team should pay, but the cost is insanely excessive, and a thinly veiled middle finger to Nixon and anyone who tries to hold Blunt accountable for his actions. How hard can it be to pull up some emails? Even thousands of emails couldn’t take more than a few weeks, but Blunt’s office says it would take one man 8 years at 40 hours a week to fulfill the request. What a load of crap. I would really be interested to see how they came up with that figure. There must be something really damning in the records for Blunt to stone wall us with such obvious bs…
Yeah, like I said, if the cost is excessive then let the judge lower it.