North Carolina: Should you be able to see your lawmakers’ correspondence? A judge will decide.

  The ACLU and a Kitty Hawk resident have asked a Wake County judge to order a North Carolina lawmaker to release correspondence to and from her office about a plastic bag ban. Kitty Hawk resident Craig Merrill and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina sued state Rep. Beverly Boswell, a Dare County […]

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Kansas House unanimously passes bill to close private email loophole

The House voted unanimously Thursday to close a loophole in the Kansas Open Records Act that allowed public officials to avoid scrutiny by using private email to conduct official business.

SB 22 will close the loophole and make public officials’ private emails open records if they pertain to official business. Private emails on personal matters would remain private.

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Texas officials’ personal email addresses open to public, court says

Public officials who use private email accounts to conduct official business cannot conceal their personal email addresses when releasing public information, a state appeals court ruled Friday.

The question dates back to 2011, when The Austin Bulldog, an independent online news site, filed several open records requests asking for all emails regarding city business between the Austin mayor, city council members and the city manager, according to court papers.

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Open records: New Mexico lawmakers rarely use work email

New Mexico legislative leaders rarely, if ever, communicate by work email and keep private the details of breakfast and dinner appointments with industry and special interest groups, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

The Legislature’s four top leaders provided their appointment calendars and hundreds of emails from the first week in February in response to the records request. Nearly all of the emails came from constituents; only three were outgoing messages.

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