Ohio high court hears debate over release of threat records

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Supreme Court vigorously questioned lawyers on both sides Tuesday in a legal dispute over the state’s decision to withhold records documenting threats against Republican Gov. John Kasich from a political blogger.

The state Public Safety Department cited security in denying a 2012 public-records request by the Democratic-leaning blog Plunderbund, which sought investigation files on any threats to Kasich or his staff.

Shortly before the request, Kasich’s office cited a large number of threats against the governor as a basis for declining to release daily schedules to the state Democratic Party. The blog wanted to find out the nature of the threats. Large labor protests had been staged against Kasich in 2011 during a battle over bargaining limits for public-employee unions that ended in a new state law being overturned.

Plunderbund’s attorney, Victoria Ullmann, argued Tuesday that the state denied the blog the records based on an overly broad interpretation of the term “security.”

“We are not asking at all for security protocols. We don’t want that; we’re not interested in that,” Ullman told justices. She said the department continued to deny access to threat records after Plunderbund narrowed its request to only closed files, then to documents describing the threats.

Ullmann asserts Ohio’s exemption of security records from public release stemmed from a section of the federal Patriot Act intended to protect buildings after the World Trade Center attacks, not people.

Of a reference in the law describing the security records as “a public office,” she said, “I don’t know of a single place in the Revised Code where a person is called an office. That’s a building.”

Several justices expressed skepticism.

“If you’re talking about attacking ‘a public office,’ you’re talking about attacking the officeholder and all of the employees within that public office,” said Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a former prosecutor and state public safety director.

But Justice Paul Pfeifer said an attitude that “we can’t tell you anything about anything” leaves state lawmakers in the dark as they craft security budgets for the state.