All four Democratic and Republican caucuses in the state House and Senate have staff lawyers, some of whom are paid more than $200,000 a year.
Yet lawmakers spend millions more public dollars to hire outside lawyers. Then senators, especially, thumb their nose at the taxpayers by refusing to disclose why the lawyers were hired.
Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia A. McCullough struck a blow for transparency recently when she ruled that lawmakers cannot “categorically” block the release of information about outside counsel, but must justify doing so on a case-by-case basis.
The case originated when two online newsrooms, Spotlight PA and The Caucus, filed right-to-know requests two years ago for the names of outside counsel, why they were hired, and their compensation.
Lawmakers turned over more than 4,000 pages, including invoices for more than $10 million to outside lawyers in 2020 and 2021, at rates between $250 and $750 per hour. But senators blacked out almost everything except the names and amounts.
Journalists matched some lawyers’ names to some known work, including more than $110,000 for two groups of lawyers to write two law review articles for Republican Speaker of the House Mike Turzai on school choice and legislative redistricting.
In redacting information other than names and amounts, the Senate claimed lawyer-client privilege and reluctance to disclose “private work product.”
That is baloney. Revealing the reason that a lawyer is hired says nothing about the subsequent work. McCullough’s ruling requires legislators to prove their claims.
More broadly, the ruling demonstrates why the Legislature should be subject to the state Open Records Law. Legislators technically must turn over public documents. But when there is a dispute, it goes to an “appeals officer” appointed by the House and Senate themselves, rather than to the independent state Office of Open Records, which handles appeals regarding the executive branch and local governments. The Senate appeals officer has not ruled against the Senate in a disclosure case.
This is a simple transparency matter. The Legislature should amend the law so that document-disclosure disputes with the Legislature go to the Office of Open Records.
— Tribune News Service
