Judge: Lawmakers emails, texts subject to public disclosure

OLYMPIA — The emails, text messages and other information from Washington state lawmakers are subject to public disclosure, a judge said Friday as he ruled in favor of a media coalition led by The Associated Press.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Lanese sided with the group that sued in September, challenging the Washington Legislature’s assertion that lawmakers are excluded from stricter disclosure rules that apply to other elected officials and agencies.

While Lanese said the offices of individual lawmakers are subject to the public records act, the Washington Legislature, the House and Senate were not.

But regarding the individual lawmakers named, Lanese said the statute was clear.

The law “literally says that representatives and senators and their offices are agencies under the public records act,” he said from the bench. “The defendants have raised many different arguments contending that that is incorrect in this case. However none of the arguments advanced by the defendants here can escape the fact that the plain and unambiguous language of the statute literally has a definitional chain that goes from agencies to state agencies to state offices to state legislative offices.”

He noted lawmakers can always amend the law, but unless they do they are subject to the state’s public records law.

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