Editorials and different Opinion content material provide views on points necessary to our neighborhood and are unbiased from the work of our newsroom reporters.
Advertisement
Expertise has modified how we talk. Missouri legislation hasn’t saved up with the instances.
J. Scott Applewhite
Related Press file photograph
Advertisement
We all know that U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley used non-public electronic mail accounts to conduct public enterprise whereas he was Missouri lawyer common. The motion violated the state’s Sunshine Regulation, the Democratic Senatorial Marketing campaign Committee claimed in lawsuit towards his workplace.
Final week, Cole County Circuit Courtroom Choose Jon Beetem heard arguments in courtroom, the place the state vigorously defended Hawley’s actions. Personal emails saved on non-government servers are usually not public data, counsel for the AG’s workplace argued.
Advertisement
The messages now not exist, attorneys claimed. Due to this fact, the communication shouldn’t be thought-about public data.
How is that proper?
The observe of utilizing non-public means to conduct official state enterprise undermines state open data legal guidelines and has no place in Missouri politics.
Expertise has modified the best way all of us talk. Missouri legal guidelines governing report retention have didn’t sustain.
Advertisement
Among the many Democratic Senatorial Marketing campaign Committee’s allegations: Hawley’s employees withheld emails the group sought between his taxpayer-funded workplace and the political consultants he used throughout his 2018 marketing campaign for Senate.
Will Beetem rule in favor of the state’s movement to dismiss the case? Or will the choose agree that public officers destroying messages and texts is prohibited and impose civil penalties towards the state AG’s workplace, per the plaintiff’s request?
Advertisement
Elected officers conducting public enterprise in non-public can not develop into the norm in Missouri. The open data legislation falls beneath the purview of the state lawyer common. The statute ensures the general public has entry to public data.
Shouldn’t Hawley’s successor, fellow Republican Lawyer Normal Eric Schmitt, know {that a} public report is any written or electronically-stored doc regarding public enterprise? You’ll be able to’t skirt the legislation by claiming a report doesn’t exist if you deliberately destroy it. By that very same logic, it will be completely fantastic for officers to conduct authorities enterprise by writing on authorized pads from their very own properties, then burning the pages as soon as they’re completed.
Politicians utilizing non-public electronic mail servers or self-destroying messaging apps is nothing new. In 2017, Missourians had been launched to Confide, a text-deleting app utilized by disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens and his employees that often disappeared their communications into the ether. Grietens was sued by advocates for open authorities.
Advertisement
In 2019, Beetem dominated that Greitens’ use of Confide didn’t violate the open data legislation. As a result of the texts had been routinely deleted and never retained, no violation occurred, Beetem dominated. The case is now beneath enchantment. If the ruling shouldn’t be overturned, it will open an enormous loophole in Missouri’s open data legislation, making a strategy to defend authorities communications concerning public enterprise.
Mark Pedroli, one of many attorneys who sued the governor’s workplace for using Confide, says the results for the general public are large if the decrease courtroom’s dismissal is allowed to face. Authorities officers might conceal their communications with impunity, absolutely undermining the intent of Missouri Sunshine Regulation, stated Pedroli, a St. Louis County lawyer and founding father of the Sunshine and Authorities Accountability Challenge.
And that’s how we get to Hawley’s try to recreation the system. The lawyer common’s workplace is utilizing the identical logic to argue Hawley’s actions had been above board.
Advertisement
Prime Republicans in Missouri consider the state’s open data legislation doesn’t pertain to them. We take the alternative view: Utilizing non-public electronic mail servers to conduct public enterprise is unhealthy authorities. One of many largest objections to Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential marketing campaign was her use of a personal electronic mail system, which was additionally unsuitable.
Digital data are not any totally different than something written on paper, and so they have to be retained. Interval.
Flooding remained a concern in Mid-Missouri Thursday morning after rain fell, causing flooding in several areas.
According to the MoDOT traveler map, Route ZZ, Route E are closed in Boone County due to flooding.
Advertisement
Route A near Moniteau Creek was reported closed due to flooding along with Route P in Cooper County, according to MoDOT.
Boone County Joint Communications sent out alerts Thursday morning about several flooded roads.
At 5:25 a.m. BCJC sent out an alert for flooding on South Providence Road and Locust Street. Just before 6 a.m., an alert was sent out for flooding on South Airport Drive and east Route H.
Water was also reported in Boone County on the 4800 block of South Old Mill Creek Road.
Large amounts of water were also seen at Strawn Park and on Strawn Road.
Advertisement
ABC 17 News crews also saw high water levels at the Moreau Creek Access in Cole County.
Three Rivers Electric took to Facebook and reported 109 of its customers were without power Thursday morning in Cole, Osage and Gasconade Counties.
BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION
Advertisement
ABC 17 News is committed to providing a forum for civil and constructive conversation.
Please keep your comments respectful and relevant. You can review our Community Guidelines by clicking here
If you would like to share a story idea, please submit it here.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KFVS) – As Missouri voters are likely on track to vote on a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to abortion, the state’s leading anti-abortion organization, Missouri Right to Life, has made claims about the resolution’s impact which legal experts refute as “untrue.”
The referendum would re-establish an individual’s right to receive abortion care up to a certain point. It also, ”require[s] the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care.”
This part of the amendment, Missouri Right to Life President Susan Klein said, would effectively block any lawsuit against an abortion provider for malpractice or negligence.
“It basically takes away the right to sue an abortionist, the right to sue a human trafficker, the right to sue the perpetrator of incest,” Klein said.
Advertisement
Former Missouri Supreme Court chief judge Mike Wolff said these claims are all based on extremely loose, and wildly exaggerated legal opinions with no basis in actual law.
“It would have no effect whatsoever,” Wolff said. “We would essentially be back to where we were with Roe versus Wade. If there was a malpractice committed in the course of giving medical care of any kind, Roe versus Wade did not protect the doctor or the hospital or anybody else from liability in a malpractice action.”
As for Klein’s claims about human trafficking and incest, Wolff said there’s absolutely nothing in the amendment that would affect how those crimes are prosecuted in the state of Missouri.
“There’s nothing in here that makes what is criminal behavior, rape, incest, that kind of thing, to be protected in any way,” Wolff said. “There’s nothing in here about that.”
A key section of the referendum says that any restrictions on abortion will be “presumed invalid” unless a court can prove they are medically necessary for safety.
Advertisement
“This is like turning the presumption of innocence in criminal cases into a presumption of guilt until proven innocent,” Missouri Right to Life attorney James Coles said in a legal analysis. “It represents another new barrier to defending the validity of abortion statutes in the courts.”
On this one, Wolff agrees, given that’s precisely the point of the initiative: to establish that abortion is not a crime and that it should be the state’s burden to prove the necessity of a restriction.
“So, if the legislature tries to impose additional restraints on this, [it would] have to show that they’re necessary to protect a person’s safety and some of the examples that you can come up with would just be absurdly unrelated to patient safety.”
The Missouri Secretary of State’s office has until August 13 to determine whether enough valid signatures were collected to put this, and other questions, on the November 5 ballot.
Pictured is a Missouri City Police Department vehicle.
A detective for the Missouri City Police Department said Wednesday it continues to investigate why a man was in the back seat of a patrol vehicle when a now-terminated officer responded to a robbery call last month and got into a wreck that killed a woman and her teenage son.
The 53-year-old man in the back seat of the patrol cruiser driven by Officer Blademir Viveros was found hours after the June 20 crash and transported to a hospital with serious injuries, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is investigating the crash. Missouri City Police Chief Brandon Harris said during a news conference last week that department policy prohibits officers from responding to calls when people are in the back of their vehicles.
“As far as if he was under arrest or in custody, I do not know,” Det. Michael Medina said Wednesday. “That’s part of our internal investigation.”
Medina said Viveros, 27, was terminated last week. Whether Viveros will face any criminal charges has yet to be determined, according to DPS, which said it will present its findings to the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office for potential prosecution.
Advertisement
Medina said the man in the back of the patrol vehicle has not been charged with any crimes since the night of the crash.
DPS said in a news release that Viveros was driving over the posted speed limit and did not have his emergency lights activated when he crashed into a 2005 Toyota Corolla driven by 16-year-old Mason Stewart at about 8:45 p.m. June 20 on Cartwright Road in Missouri City. Both Stewart and his mother, 53-year-old Angela Stewart, were pronounced dead at the scene.
Mason Stewart was pulling out of a private drive and failed to yield the right-of-way to Viveros, DPS said.
