Author
Amye Bensenhaver
As threats to open government in Kentucky keep multiplying, it’s hard to celebrate
I will not celebrate Sunshine Week 2023. Since leaving the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office in 2016, I have pursued open government as an avocation rather than a vocation. I have come to understand the importance of Sunshine Week as an annual celebration of public records laws securing the public’s right to know how their elected […]
Secret juvenile justice work group the latest in Kentucky legislature’s contempt for transparency
Across the nation — ?and particularly in Arizona and Mississippi — opposition is rising to state legislatures’ direct and indirect efforts to exclude themselves from public oversight. A chorus of newspapers, including The Washington Post, have exposed — if not decried — this groundswell of legislative secrecy. For nearly a half century, Kentucky’s open records […]
Will Kentucky legislature end a patient’s right to one free copy of medical records?
Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. Just another attempt by Kentucky lawmakers to take from the poor and give to the rich. The pretext for this most recent money grab is the “huge burden on the health-care system when it comes to medical records” and a promise to “lower overall health care costs.” HB […]
Look for more attacks on Kentucky’s open government laws
Kentucky lawmakers faced a dilemma in 1975. One year earlier, they enthusiastically enacted an open meetings and an open records law aimed at restoring the public’s trust in government. Years of deception associated with the Vietnam Conflict and clandestine and illegal activities by the Nixon administration — collectively referred to as the Watergate scandal — […]