After the Trump-Pence ticket exploited the issue of Hillary Clinton's emails at every turn, Mike Pence is working to block public access to the contents of his emails as governor of Indiana.
His lawyers are now fighting to deny disclosure of records showing how many taxpayer dollars he spent to hire outside attorneys to join an anti-immigration case. If Pence succeeds in keeping those records hidden from public view, it would set a precedent in which the judicial branch in Indiana sacrifices its ability to properly serve as a check on the state’s executive branch. Pence is clearly in favor of the executive having unfettered control without that check. Fatima Hussein writes:
"It comes down to this — the court is giving up its ability to check another branch of government, and that should worry people," said Gerry Lanosga, an Indiana University media professor specializing in public records law.
In the case, Indianapolis attorney William Groth is appealing a decision handed down by Marion Superior Court in April, which decided that redactions the administration made to a public record could not be second-guessed by the court.
The focal point in the case is a political “white paper” that had been excluded from Groth’s public records request.
Pence’s legal defense team claims the white paper is attorney work product protected by Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act — and at the end of the day, matters of public records are not for a court to decide.
Groth is trying to figure out how much Pence spent to hire outside counsel in order to join about two dozen other states in opposing President Obama's immigration actions of 2014. Indiana's Republican attorney general, Greg Zoeller, had declined to sign on to the case, Texas v. U.S., and gave Pence the go-ahead to hire outside counsel if he wanted to pursue the case.
In December 2014, Groth requested information regarding Pence's decision to hire outside counsel and the cost to Indiana taxpayers.
"I think joining the lawsuit without the attorney general and hiring that firm was a waste of taxpayer dollars and the people have the right to know how much of their money was spent,” Groth said. Groth is known in Indiana for representing the plaintiffs in the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court voter identification case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.
Pence produced the documents in the request “but those documents included substantial redaction,” according to court documents.
Pence failed to include the white paper that was a attached to an email he and 29 other state officials received from Daniel Hodge, chief of staff to then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who filed the legal challenge.
The state's Superior Court found that the question of public access to the records didn't fall within its domain. Groth appealed the ruling and the Indiana Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments on Nov. 21. Unfortunately, the state's Supreme Court ruled in a separate case, Citizens Action Coalition, et al. v. Indiana House Rep., that it didn't have authority to decide whether materials redacted by the legislature should be made public.
This gives you a sense of what Mike Pence, sometimes viewed as the responsible side of the Trump-Pence ticket, thinks about government accountability to the people. Not much. If he has it his way, his constituents will forever be kept in the dark about how much they paid to challenge a policy that barely even affected Indiana.