Governors evade sunshine laws to keep records from public
PIERRE, S.D. >> South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s outspoken business-as-usual approach throughout the coronavirus pandemic has made her a darling of national conservatives and allowed her to hopscotch across the country as a fundraising force.
But the public cannot see emails on how she made her decisions or how much state taxpayers are spending for her traveling security detail.
Despite Noem’s 2018 promise “to throw open the doors” of government, the South Dakota governor’s office has denied requests for both records, citing broad exemptions to the state’s sunshine law. Her state is among half a dozen where governors’
offices routinely block access to executive records, keeping the public in the dark about decision making and possible influence peddling by special interests.
“Things that are in the public’s interests are still being hidden from the public,” said Jack Marsh, a former executive editor of The Argus Leader newspaper and co-founder of the nonprofit South Dakota News Watch.
He said South Dakota’s open-records laws are “some of the weakest in the country” and noted that there has been little advancement of transparency under Noem’s administration other than a 2019 law that shields reporters from being forced to reveal sources.
In most states, sunshine laws give the public insight into the governor’s decisions. Since last year, governors across the country have provided thousands of pages of emails in response to requests filed by The Associated Press, revealing how some pushed economic interests ahead of public health guidance as they battled the pandemic.
But Noem and governors in five other states — Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey — have thwarted records requests by citing exemptions.
Her administration has refused to disclose how much it costs to send state troopers with her as she travels the country campaigning for former President Donald Trump and raising her own campaign cash. The governor’s office has cited state law exempting security details from records requests and argued that providing the information would “put lives in danger.”