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HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro refuses to release his daily schedule, a policy that obscures many of the details about who he meets and what they discuss.
The decision breaks with the practice of his predecessor and is the new governor’s last option to reverse a transparency measure.
The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, an independent state agency that resolves right-to-know disputes, recently ruled in favor of Shapiro and found that he didn’t need to share details about his schedule.
In response to a request for comment, Shapiro spokesman Manuel Bonder wrote that the office “releases the governor’s public schedule directly to reporters every day” and that Shapiro “regularly visits communities throughout Pennsylvania, taking questions from journalists and constituents alike, and he will continue to be accessible to the people of the Commonwealth.”
Bonder added that the bureau is following relevant open records rulings and “will continue to balance personal safety and security with a high level of transparency.”
Calendars that go beyond a public schedule can provide a window into officials’ work, priorities, and close allies. They typically show which staffers, lawmakers and non-government figures meet with the governor, when those meetings occur and, in varying levels of detail, what is discussed.
Melissa Melewsky, a media attorney with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which Spotlight PA is a member, said that while state courts have ruled that public officials have the right to share virtually no information about in his day, Shapiro might decide to offer a lot of information. month.
“The right-to-know law still allows the governor to release those records,” Melewsky said. “He’s choosing not to.”
The administration’s calendar policy came to light because of an open records request from a pro-Republican organization that conducts opposition research on Democrats. The group, America Rising, submitted a request for Shapiro’s work schedules shortly after his January 2023 inauguration.
The governor’s attorneys told the group that Shapiro’s calendars are personal, serve no official purpose and are not widely shared in the office, an explanation Pennsylvania’s elected officials have often offered in response to requests from the Calendar. The attorneys argued that documents that meet those standards should be classified as “personal notes and work papers” and are not subject to the state’s Right to Know Act.
Citing 2012 and 2014 Commonwealth Court cases involving officials from Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Department of State, respectively, the OOR agreed.
Allan Blutstein, the senior vice president of America Rising who requested Shapiro’s agenda, acknowledged that he did so for political reasons. The organization routinely requests Democratic governors’ calendars, especially early in their terms, he told Spotlight PA.
But, Blutstein added, he thinks there’s a nonpartisan argument for officials to make records like calendars accessible.
“Constituents can see trends in terms of the type of organizations the governor is meeting with,” Blutstein said. “Who has access? Who has the governor’s ear? How often does the governor meet with his staff to discuss issues one, two and three?
In their argument not to share calendars, Shapiro’s lawyers also said the documents contain information about personal medical appointments and identifying information about minors (the governor has young children), as well as information about his location that could compromise his safety
Blutstein said the governor’s office could simply redact that information and provide only things relevant to state business. Government agencies often remove selected information when responding to public records requests.
“I don’t have a problem with the newsrooms,” Blutstein said. “Here, we don’t even get to that point because the whole calendar is personal.”
Blutstein said his organization has not yet decided whether it will appeal the OOR’s decision in Commonwealth Court.
Right-to-know fights over calendars are not new in Pennsylvania.
During Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s tenure from 2011 to 2015, his administration engaged in a lengthy legal battle with an Associated Press reporter who requested calendars early in Corbett’s administration.
In this case, however, the Corbett administration provided some information. His office gave the reporter records showing who he met with, when and where, but he redacted the topics of the meeting.
This battle won negative headlines for then-Gov. A publisher accused him of creating an anti-transparency “Fortress Corbett”. But Melewsky noted that he still gave more information than Shapiro.
“Corbett exercised more discretion than Shapiro here,” he said.
When Wolf faced Corbett, he made transparency a centerpiece of his campaign, at one point issue a statement saying that Corbett had run “the least transparent administration in history” and specifically voicing Corbett’s calendar redactions.
“It all starts with a governor who really wants transparency and openness,” Wolf said he told reporters shortly after his election.
Throughout his eight years in office, the Wolf administration calendars published at the end of each week which detailed what time Wolf arrived in Harrisburg and returned to his home in York County, who he met with and sometimes, but not always, what they talked about.
A Tuesday at Wolf’s final year in office, for example, saw him sit down for an early radio interview, visit a Harrisburg daycare center, swear in an assistant secretary, go with two assistant secretaries to a meeting with representatives of an Indian outsourcing company and get an update from your legislative affairs secretary.
This isn’t the first time Shapiro has broken with Wolf over transparency.
As he prepared to take office, Shapiro had members of his transition team sign confidentiality agreements, and unlike his predecessors, he refused to name the private donors who had financed his inaugural celebration. He too loosened Wolf’s notoriously strict gift ban for high state officials.
Of Shapiro’s latest decision not to share details of the schedule, Melewsky noted that the governor has spent the past seven years running the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office, which is largely exempt from state information laws.
“There may be a learning curve,” he said.
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