Branstad: Culver trying to thwart access to public records

Gov. Chet Culver‘s decision to charge a $744 fee just to consider releasing certain e-mails requested by the media is an example of the administration setting up “financial roadblocks” that thwart access to public records, former Gov. Terry Branstad told The Des Moines Register.

Branstad, who is competing in the GOP gubernatorial primary for the chance to challenge Culver this fall, is referring to an open records request by The Register for e-mails surrounding whether the Culver administration interfered with the work of Iowa’s chief advocate for the elderly. The paper reported Tuesday that the director of Iowa Department on Aging had been restricting statements made by Long-Term Care Ombudsman Jeanne Yordi, a violation of the federal Older Americans Act.

[Department director John] McCalley told The Des Moines Register last week that regardless of the policy’s language, he had never attempted to interfere with Yordi’s federally required advocacy on behalf of Iowa’s 600,000 seniors.

But in e-mail exchanges with Yordi and members of her staff earlier this year, McCalley wrote that he and “the governor’s office” had to approve any efforts by the ombudsmen to advocate for, or against, state and federal legislation dealing with the elderly.

The paper acquired the e-mails from another source within the department after it was told the Culver administration would require a $744 fee, which would pay for McCalley to examine each of the 1,200 e-mails requested to decide whether they should be kept confidential. A spokesman for the governor said the fees are charged so that “for-profit media” pay for the expense of filling the requests, not the taxpayer.

This isn’t the first time Culver and “The Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon” have had conflict over an open-records request. In 2008, Culver’s staff refused to release a draft report that outlines Iowa’s housing recommendations after the floods. The reports were withheld because they were drafts, not final documents, the governor’s staff contended, and all were eventually released. Later that year, Culver’s staff refused to release a list of recommended budget cuts given to the governor from state departments.

In 2009, the governor refused to turn over e-mails surrounding his office’s response to the unexpected death of a resident at a state-run home for the disabled, once again calling them draft documents. Last spring, Culver told The Register it will be charged $630 for a state lawyer to determine whether e-mails relating to the Atalissa scandal can legally be kept confidential.

During his 2006 campaign for governor, and in the wake of the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium (CIETC) pay scandal, Culver stressed the need for strong open-records laws. His inaugural address in January 2007 hailed open government, saying Iowans “are right to demand ethical, accountable and open government.”

In a statement to the media, Branstad called for the creation of a separate division within the Iowa Attorney General’s office to strictly enforce Iowa’s open records and open meetings laws.