From the editor: Ohio Supreme Court majority plays politics, strikes blow to open records

It was a blatant political stunt, but I appreciate the gesture.

Last week, a Democrat in the Ohio House introduced a bill he’s calling the Super Bowl Entourage Expense Act. What’s behind the oddly specific piece of legislation? Let’s start at the beginning – which is a very good place to start.

Defying most expectations, the Bengals clawed their way to the Super Bowl in 2022. Among those who made the trip to SoFi Stadium in Englewood, California, was Gov. Mike DeWine, along with 19 members of his family.

DeWine was quick to note he paid for the trip, including the cost of the tickets. But when the governor travels, the state provides security for him and his entourage.

How much did the security detail cost taxpayers? It’s a fair question, so we asked for a breakdown of airfare, food, lodging, overtime and other expenses incurred by the Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers whose job it was to keep the governor safe.

Our request was denied. Lawyers for the Ohio Department of Public Safety said the information fell under a security exemption in Ohio’s open records law. Releasing expense receipts might reveal the size of the security detail, the hotels they stayed at and other tactical information that could be used by bad actors to attack the governor, they argued.

We disagreed – the Super Bowl was a unique event that occurred in the past – but offered a compromise. We modified our request and asked only for the total cost to taxpayers for the security detail. A lump sum, not an itemized list.

They wouldn’t budge. So we filed a lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court.

Nearly two Super Bowls later, the court issued its ruling. In a 4-3 split decision that followed party lines, the Republicans on the court struck a blow against government transparency and ruled the information we sought was not a public record.

In his dissent, Justice Michael Donnelly said it’s “more than a stretch” to conclude keeping gas receipts secret is essential for the governor’s security.

“It is obvious that all disclosures of public records come with some security concerns. As an extreme example, there is no doubt that any governor would be much safer if no one knew his or her name, what she or he looks like, or where he or she lives and works,” Donnelly said. “But the incremental concern at issue here is not, to my mind, sufficient justification for shrouding government spending in secrecy.”

I couldn’t have said that better myself. If there’s a security expert out there who can take a dollar amount and derive from it a sinister plan to hit a target, please send them my way.

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And now we get to State Rep. Eliot Forhan, the Cleveland-area Democrat who wants to create a law that overturns the court’s decision. First, thank you. I appreciate your support of open records. Second, don’t waste your time.

As our state government reporter Laura Bischoff wrote, the bill is dead on arrival. It has no chance of making it through the Republican-controlled General Assembly; if it did, DeWine would veto it; and since Forhan is being investigated by the Ohio Attorney General over accusations of harassment and intimidation, no one is rushing to support him right now.

So what’s next? The Enquirer will continue to fight for government transparency and open records. At any given time, Enquirer reporters have more than a dozen active public records requests, most of which are granted without involving the court.

Even though we lost this one, we forced the discussion. Ohio taxpayers might not know how much they spent to send the governor to the Super Bowl, but the fact his political allies fought to keep it secret suggests it was a sizable sum that would have raised some eyebrows.

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Enquirer Executive Editor Beryl Love writes a biweekly column that takes you behind the scenes at The Enquirer. Occasionally, he shares his thoughts on local issues, particularly as they pertain to a free press and open government. Love also serves as regional editor for the USA TODAY Network Ohio. Email him at blove@enquirer.com. He can’t respond personally to every email, but he reads them all.