By Colman M. Herman

Republican state senators are pushing an ethics amendment that would mandate Gov. Deval Patrick’s office to follow the Public Records Law. Sources say Senate Democrats, weary of the governor’s attacks on the Legislature, may give the amendment enough support to pass.

As CommonWealth reported last fall, Patrick, like other governors before him, claims that the law does not apply to his office as a result of a 1997 court decision, which noted the governor’s office is not specifically mentioned in the law. “Even so, we regularly comply with records and release documents to the public,” Kimberly Haberlin, a spokeswoman for Patrick, told me.

But a recent review by CommonWealth of public records requests made to the governor found that it is not uncommon for him to withhold documents. The Republicans cited the CommonWealth research when they announced their plan to file amendments to the ethics bill.

The public records amendment was one of several ethics reform proposals announced by Republican senators last week. One of them, a proposal to curb a controversial system the governor has used to sidestep campaign contribution limits, has already been incorporated into the Democratic bill coming up for debate tomorrow.

The campaign finance proposal calls for a $500 limit on how much any individual could contribute to a state political party. It targets Patrick’s practice of soliciting $5,500 contributions from special interests — made up of $500 to Patrick’s committee and $5,000 to a special fund within the state Democratic Party. The party has tapped the special fund over the past two years to pay more than $700,000 in Patrick campaign expenses.

Democrats on Beacon Hill said privately that they embraced the campaign finance change in part because they are tired of Patrick’s attacks on the Legislature. As a result, these senators said, the Republican public records amendment may also get a favorable reception, although it may raise some ethical questions for lawmakers as well.

The governor isn’t the only political figure on Beacon Hill who believes he is exempt from the Public Records Law. The judicial branch of government, citing several court decisions, says it is exempt. And the Legislature specifically exempted itself from the law in 1851.

Asked why the Republicans were targeting the governor on public records and not the Legislature, Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei promptly said he would also file an amendment to bring the Legislature under purview of the Public Records Law.

Republicans hold only five seats in the Senate, so any chance of prevailing in the Senate hinges on gaining Democratic support. Democrats declined comment prior to tomorrow’s debate, but one official said he favored delaying any action on the Public Records Law. He said the law needs a major overhaul instead of tinkering around the edges.
 
Haberlin, the governor’s spokeswoman, declined to say whether Patrick would support having his office be subject to the Public Records Law, but she urged me to find out whether lawmakers would also make themselves subject to the Public Records Law. She said the governor’s office was monitoring the ethics legislation closely.

A task force on ethics appointed by Patrick issued a report in January that focused primarily on nuts-and-bolts changes to ethics and campaign finance laws, but it did raise a handful of other issues, including making the Legislature subject to the state’s Open Meeting Law and revamping the Public Records Law to make the inner workings of government more transparent. The task force concluded, however, that the issues “fall outside the task force’s principal area of focus.”

Illustration by Polly Becker.