Still a broken record

Gov. Charlie Baker is right — there ought to be “some sort of structure in place” that requires the Legislature to disclose more information about fees it pays to defend against legal claims made against individual lawmakers and staff.

But Baker could have gone further. The same “structure” could apply to his own office — in fact, the state public records law should apply to the governor’s office and the Legislature full stop.

Now it’s possible that even if the law that applies to scores of municipal and state agencies were to apply to the Legislature, details on those legal payments might remain out of public view. As Herald legal reporter Bob McGovern noted yesterday, a 2007 Supreme Judicial Court ruling affirmed that the public records law does not erase the attorneyclient privilege between lawyers and their state agency clients.

But surely there is a way to disclose a greater level of detail for taxpayers, who have financed $1 million in legal fees for lawmakers and staff over the past five years, than the vagaries they’re lucky to get now. Since 2012, for example, the House and Senate have spent a combined $354,000, for the services of a law firm that specializes in “human resourcerelated matters.” But the taxpayers may never know what those “matters” are.

Beyond the specifics of legal fees, if lawmakers and the governor are committed to transparency they will pursue an expansion of the public records law to apply to their own offices. The Legislature is specifically exempt. The governor’s office (and not just under Baker) claims an exemption based on a 1997 SJC decision, though it does grant some public records requests voluntarily.

In a 2016 update to the public records law legislators punted on extending it to apply to themselves and the governor’s office. But they did establish a special commission to study doing so. That report is due Dec. 30.

It is a long shot, yes. Folks at the State House benefit from the status quo. But it is too easy to hide behind exemptions and court rulings when the default position should be disclosure.