The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
When elected officials make decisions that affect the public, they should be able to explain why they made those decisions.
That is a simple lesson Republican legislators in Arizona apparently need to learn again. They recently adopted new rules directing legislators to destroy their emails after 90 days and destroy their text messages whenever they like. This is a ridiculous policy that disrespects the public’s right to know what their legislators are doing.
I’d like to poke holes in their argument for why the new rules were necessary, but I can’t. They didn’t bother to present an argument when they approved them.
I watched the Jan. 24 House and the Jan. 25 Senate “debates” about the new rules. Each legislator had a chance to rise and explain their vote for three minutes. Collectively, Republican legislators had about two hours to present an argument. They chose not to. The closest they came was Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli saying if the public wants to know what’s on his personal phone, they should get a warrant.
If GOP legislators had a good reason for destroying public records, they squandered their chance to explain it to the public.
House Speaker Ben Toma left a few breadcrumbs in interviews with Capitol Media Services and The Arizona Republic, but he focused more on whether legislators had the power to change the rules, rather than whether they should.
Toma said there wasn’t “any intention on my part to hide anything”; “we do have legislative privilege that applies”; “We have the right to do this — and we’re doing it”; the old policy was “really outdated”; and the new policy mirrors the state judiciary’s rules on records.
The best justification Toma gave was that legislators wanted a consistent policy that “strikes a balance” between disclosure and privacy. He didn’t explain how they arrived at that “balance” or why people who pass laws should have basically the same level of privacy as regular citizens.
If any legislator had made those statements during the debates in the House and Senate, here is what I expect they would have heard in response:
Destroying public records certainly makes it look like they’re trying to hide something. Legislative privilege does not apply to all text messages and emails. Legislators have the right to make rules that require them to dress like circus clowns, but that doesn’t mean they should do it. They had a variety of ways to improve the outdated policy that didn’t include destroying records.
Also, if the Legislature is going to mirror the judiciary, then legislators should do what judges do: explain their decisions.
The public deserves to know more about why legislators decided to destroy public records. If there’s a good reason, let’s hear it.
In that spirit, I’d like to invite the legislators who voted for the new rules to write guest opinions answering this question: Why were these new rules necessary? That includes Sen. Justine Wadsack of LD 17, Rep. Gail Griffin of LD 19, and Reps. Rachel Jones and Cory McGarr of LD 17.
They can reach out to me directly or submit guest opinions at tucson.com/opinion. I look forward to hearing from them.
