With increasing exasperation, we write yet again to decry the seemingly endless pursuit of Kentucky Republicans to mock the concept of public transparency, to weaken the press and to generally disregard basic freedoms afforded by the First Amendment.

For decades, Kentucky’s Open Records Act has been hailed as a standard bearer for accountability laws. But in recent legislative sessions – including the current one – the state GOP has repeatedly spearheaded troubling attempts to diminish the law by seeking to erect barriers between the public and information it has a right to know. Not only that, we’ve seen Republicans take dead aim at newspapers’ financial health by stripping legal advertisements from many publications. Oh, and don’t forget Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s clear signal to public officials last year that they may conduct public business on their private devices, allowing them to circumvent pesky public disclosure laws.

What’s going on here? Proponents of such measures are always ready with talking points laying out their supposed good intentions. But we’re not fooled. Amid a national political climate in which anti-media rhetoric is a cornerstone of mainstream conservative campaigning, are we really expected to believe it’s just an innocent coincidence that state Republicans are flooding the zone with a series of anti-journalism, anti-free speech and anti-transparency proposals?

The GOP’s latest salvo in this crusade is Senate Bill 63, sponsored by state Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton. In its current form, the bill is an absurdly wide-ranging and open-ended attempt to not only drastically limit the amount of “personally identifiable information” that Kentuckians are allowed to know about public officials, but also to establish grounds to sue anyone who shares the kind of information that has been freely available for decades. As the bill is written, “personally identifiable information” encompasses pretty much anything you can think of, even redundantly including some data – such as Social Security numbers and health care information – that are, appropriately so, already withheld from public view.

Of course, the Kentucky Press Association is in a lather over this proposal, which it considers baldly unconstitutional and “a broadside attack on the First Amendment.” KPA general counsel Jon Fleishaker and Michael Abate recently excoriated the bill in a scathing statement, the bulk of which we share verbatim:

“The bill’s poor drafting and internal inconsistencies create far more problems than they solve, leaving public agencies, journalists, businesses, and citizens unsure of what they can say or do concerning a wide range of public officials or any person related to them by blood, marriage, or law. That latter category of protected persons is so large and unknowable that this bill’s unintended consequences are impossible to overstate.

“SB 63 also will have profound and detrimental effects on the Commonwealth’s Open Records Act. It will conceal from the public basic information that has long been available – without incident – and is essential for citizens to oversee elected and appointed public officials paid with their tax dollars. It also will jeopardize the ability of businesses, agencies, and courts to perform routine public functions that depend on the free flow of information regarding public records concerning birth, death, marriage, insurance, property ownership, taxes, and political contributions. Anyone who is, or is related in any way to a peace officer, public safety officer, judicial officer, prosecutor, public defender, first responder, Cabinet for Health and Family Services investigator, county attorney, corrections officer, probation officer, jailer, juvenile probation or corrections officer, call center employee, administrative law judge, or hearing officer can demand that all such records be placed off limits to the public, imperiling routine commercial and legal transactions. This category of people entitled to these new protections is so broad and ill-defined it could include a substantial percentage of all Kentuckians – which means that agencies charged with implementing the bill will have no real way of knowing who is, and who is not, covered by its terms.

“Perhaps most troublingly, the bill would authorize, for the first time, personal financial liability (including punitive damages and attorney’s fees) for any person that disseminates information about these public officials and employees, or anyone related to them, even if that information does not come from public records. This is true regardless of whether that information is already in the public domain or whether the person who disseminated it had any way of knowing that the person suing them was even protected by the act (because, say, their cousin by marriage happened to be a administrative hearing officer). These substantial penalties will stifle – or punish – all manner of constitutionally protected speech, including essential investigative reporting on public agencies, and officials, and controversies.

“For all of its problems, this bill provides remarkably little – if any – benefit. The types of legitimately private information the bill covers already are exempt from disclosure under the Open Records Act. And if the General Assembly believes that certain, narrow types of information should be specifically exempted by statute – such as bank account information, social security numbers, or identities of minor children – that can easily be accomplished by amending the existing privacy exception in the Open Records Act to include that specific information. Such a change would extend those protections to all Kentuckians rather than just the favored few whom this bill seems intended to appease.

“Simply put, this bill is an affront to the Constitution and principles of open government. No legislator can support this bill and call themselves a champion of government transparency.”

Carroll is a frequent flyer in attempts to stifle free speech and shield information from public view. Last year, Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed Carroll’s similar open records bill. And in both 2021 and 2022, Carroll filed controversial bills seeking to make it illegal to taunt law enforcement officers – a measure some might consider reasonable at first, but upon reflection reveals itself as a chilling affront to the First Amendment.

Earlier this month, Carroll was unavailable to speak to the media about SB 63 due to illness, but one of his allies on such issues – state Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville – told the Lexington Herald-Leader the bill is intended to prevent the spread of so-called private information that could conceivably be abused in an effort to physically harm a public servant.

“I’m simply trying to find a way to protect people, especially in the criminal justice system, from attack,” Blanton told that newspaper. “I’m not opposed to anybody writing an article good, bad or indifferent about somebody.”

That explanation doesn’t hold water. Yes, public information has, in rare cases, been used for appalling purposes. But such tragic events are few and far between, and certainly not common enough to outweigh the positive aspects of transparency laws. And while Blanton claims he doesn’t care about “anybody writing an article good, bad or indifferent,” the fact is that SB 63 potentially could make it awfully difficult, if not impossible in some circumstances, for news outlets to report and publish legitimate stories about public officials.

Sadly, the GOP’s recent track record leaves little reason to give the party the benefit of the doubt. A preponderance of the evidence suggests many Republicans have become so intolerant of scrutiny and accountability that they are willing to legislate against transparency and the First Amendment. Considering how often Republicans rant about being mistreated by the “liberal media” or the “fake news,” it’s pretty obvious what they’re really trying to achieve: a codified way to evade watchdogs, both in the press and the general public.

This stuff has grown far beyond tiresome. And in some cases, it is starkly un-American. Most members of this editorial board lean right politically, but as journalists, we cannot and will not support any assault on transparency and press freedom. We often disagree with the editorial stances of many media outlets in Kentucky – just as many of them disagree with ours – but we would never seek to silence them or to make it more difficult for them to carry out their vital roles under the Constitution. Politicians who lack the maturity or the backbone to deal with criticism or opposing viewpoints should leave public office altogether, instead of trying to rig the game in order to make their jobs more comfortable.

This recurring theme in conservative politics is profoundly disappointing and frightening, and we urge reasonable-minded elected officials on both sides of the aisle to firmly oppose all such misguided and dangerous efforts to undermine our freedoms.