Opinion: ‘Pharaoh’ Corbett’s heavy-handed lawsuit
December 11, 2012 Right to Know Law
OPINION
[DuBois] Courier-Express Editorial
Pennsylvania's Gov. Tom Corbett might be the Keystone State's equivalent of Mohammad Morsi.
You know Morsi from news reports. He is Egypt's new President. His sweeping decrees giving him almost unlimited power have prompted opponents to derisively tag him as "Pharaoh Morsi," a ruler who thinks that he is beyond criticism.
A reporter simply asked to see Corbett's schedule. The governor refused. The reporter took his case to the state Office of Open Records.
That office agreed with the reporter that most of the requested information ought to be public.
Corbett sued.
He didn't sue the Associated Press, the employer of reporter Mark Scolforo.
No. He went after Scolforo's credit, possessions, bank account, etc., by suing Scolforo personally.
Scolforo isn't just any hack journalist, either. He is a consistently award-winning reporter with a wall full of state and national recognition plaques. For our money, he is one of the top five reporters in Pennsylvania. The only thing as strong as his sense of ethics and his competence is his pursuit of accurate information. That's why he wanted to see Corbett's schedule.
But it really doesn't matter why. Corbett is a public official. What he does on public business is, or ought to be, public information.
In refusing, Corbett cited the 1972 shooting of Alabama Gov. George Wallace and the 1935 assassination of Louisiana Gov. Huey Long as reasons a governor's schedule must be guarded.
C'mon.
We knew George Wallace. Corbett is no George Wallace. Nor is he Huey Long.
The odd thing is that in Alabama and Louisiana, as is true in most states, the governor's public-events schedule is open.
Nobody's asking to know when Corbett goes Christmas shopping, or if he does.
And though we disagree, we could have understood it if Corbett had appealed the Open Records ruling - professionally.
But to bring the awesome power of the full state government to bear against a single journalist, personally - that's an action more appropriate to a megalomaniac than a governor.
Beyond that, the real danger is that the governor and the courts, which should hear the case early next year, could invalidate the Open Records law, undoing all the progress made in Pennsylvania in the past decade. Pennsylvania went from having probably the worst open government atmosphere in the nation to our current status, pretty darn good.
We need to keep things that way, and not have public officials acting like monarchs unaccountable for their discharge of their public duties.
— Denny Bonavita, Publisher
[DuBois] Courier-Express Editorial
Pennsylvania's Gov. Tom Corbett might be the Keystone State's equivalent of Mohammad Morsi.
You know Morsi from news reports. He is Egypt's new President. His sweeping decrees giving him almost unlimited power have prompted opponents to derisively tag him as "Pharaoh Morsi," a ruler who thinks that he is beyond criticism.
A reporter simply asked to see Corbett's schedule. The governor refused. The reporter took his case to the state Office of Open Records.
That office agreed with the reporter that most of the requested information ought to be public.
Corbett sued.
He didn't sue the Associated Press, the employer of reporter Mark Scolforo.
No. He went after Scolforo's credit, possessions, bank account, etc., by suing Scolforo personally.
Scolforo isn't just any hack journalist, either. He is a consistently award-winning reporter with a wall full of state and national recognition plaques. For our money, he is one of the top five reporters in Pennsylvania. The only thing as strong as his sense of ethics and his competence is his pursuit of accurate information. That's why he wanted to see Corbett's schedule.
But it really doesn't matter why. Corbett is a public official. What he does on public business is, or ought to be, public information.
In refusing, Corbett cited the 1972 shooting of Alabama Gov. George Wallace and the 1935 assassination of Louisiana Gov. Huey Long as reasons a governor's schedule must be guarded.
C'mon.
We knew George Wallace. Corbett is no George Wallace. Nor is he Huey Long.
The odd thing is that in Alabama and Louisiana, as is true in most states, the governor's public-events schedule is open.
Nobody's asking to know when Corbett goes Christmas shopping, or if he does.
And though we disagree, we could have understood it if Corbett had appealed the Open Records ruling - professionally.
But to bring the awesome power of the full state government to bear against a single journalist, personally - that's an action more appropriate to a megalomaniac than a governor.
Beyond that, the real danger is that the governor and the courts, which should hear the case early next year, could invalidate the Open Records law, undoing all the progress made in Pennsylvania in the past decade. Pennsylvania went from having probably the worst open government atmosphere in the nation to our current status, pretty darn good.
We need to keep things that way, and not have public officials acting like monarchs unaccountable for their discharge of their public duties.
— Denny Bonavita, Publisher
