A controversial bill to revise Kentucky s open records law and shield records of lawmakers won final passage Friday amid allegations that two women in the House who voted against it received an anonymous threat.
On Thursday, Sen. Adrienne Southworth, a Lawrenceburg Republican, said two women lawmakers, both Republicans, after voting against House Bill 312 found copies on their desks of a House seating chart with photos of their faces faces punched out.
The charts display photos of lawmakers and their seating assignments in each chamber. These two ladies were the only Republican representatives who voted no on House Bill 312, Southworth said in a Senate floor speech just before the Senate approved it on a 22-11 vote. Their reward was a threat.
A new version of a controversial bill to revise the state s open records law shot through a Senate committee in 20 minutes Wednesday, despite unanswered questions from one lawmaker about how it shields records of legislators from disclosure.
Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, voted no on House Bill 312 after Sen. Robby Mills, chairman of the Senate State and Local Government Committee, cut off discussion, citing a tight schedule. That s really actually upsetting, that we re the legislature and we can t talk about legislative records, Southworth said.
Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, voted for the bill but also expressed reservations about the section involving records of lawmakers, commenting: I m a little bit worried about the legislative piece.
For years, the Kentucky General Assembly has been sliding down the slippery slope of secrecy, into a hole that shields it from public scrutiny. Last week, 71 members of the state House doubled down on darkness, and expanded it to make just about every other part of government in Kentucky less transparent.
In one of the more ironic but emblematic moves I’ve seen in more than 40 years of watching our legislature closely, the House passed a bill to reduce government openness in a manner that was far from open.
They started with a bill that bore the bland title “An act relating to financial institutions,” supposedly to remove three gender-specific references in banking law. It was one page plus one line.