Top Jindal aides use personal email to strategize

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Top officials in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration used personal email accounts to craft a media strategy for imposing hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid cuts — a method of communication that can make it more difficult to track under public records laws despite Jindal's pledge to bring more transparency to state government.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press reveal that non-state government email addresses were used dozens of times by state officials to communicate last summer about a public relations offensive for making $523 million in health care cuts. Those documents weren't provided to AP in response to a public records request.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Jindal, now in his second term, has become a leading voice among Republican governors and is considered a potential presidential candidate. It's unclear whether he knew his top staff used private accounts to conduct public business. The practice folds into a national debate over the use of personal email accounts by government officials to discuss official business.

The issue was a prominent one during the administration of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and the practice occurred during former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's term as Massachusetts governor.

Palin's use of private email accounts as governor prompted a lawsuit in which the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that officials using private email accounts for public business need to keep documents "appropriate for preservation" under the state's records management act. In response, her successor has instructed employees to use state email for conducting state business.

While governor in Massachusetts, Romney used two private email addresses to communicate with aides, develop policy and political strategy and edit op-ed articles and press releases. The communications were legal under Massachusetts law, but state public officials deemed them public records and subject to archiving.

The head of a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks public records issues said government officials often use private email accounts to try to sidestep disclosure laws designed to provide sunshine in government.

"Absolutely people use private accounts to hide things," said Kenneth Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, based at the University of Missouri. "If government business is conducted or information about it is sent or received on personal computers or through personal email accounts, that does not keep it from being the public's business."

While some states consider electronic communications public material and subject to the same restrictions as paper records, many others provide little or no oversight. At least 26 states view the use of private emails as public records, but the rest have no clear rules or prevailing case law on their use.

The email exchanges in Louisiana took place this past summer, as the Jindal administration was planning steep reductions to programs for the poor and uninsured because of a drop in federal Medicaid funding.

Participants included Jindal's top budget adviser Kristy Nichols, health care secretary Bruce Greenstein, Greenstein's chief of staff and health policy adviser, and Jindal's communications staff. Jindal was not included in the emails, and his office hasn't responded to a question about his knowledge of them.

Okay, I'll bite...where's the article about this White House staff doing the exact same thing? Or how about staffers meeting lobbyists off the White House complex (since the visitor logs are subject to FOIA requests).

Where is the story on the millions spent by Obama on vacations, golf, OUR AIRPLANE for campaigning? This administration is right out of the sit-com characterized by :moving on up". It's disgusting and you write a story about Jindal aides!!!!

Off target. Every president (Republican and Democrat) takes vacations, use Air Force for campaign trips, etc.

Instead of groaning, don't you find it interesting that they are shifting the money from state run hospitals to private hospitals. Who do you think will benefit from that shift? Private doctors, pharmaceutical companies, etc?

Off target. Every president (Republican and Democrat) takes vacations, use Air Force for campaign trips, etc.

Instead of groaning, don't you find it interesting that they are shifting the money from state run hospitals to private hospitals. Who do you think will benefit from that shift? Private doctors, pharmaceutical companies, etc?

Off target. Every president (Republican and Democrat) takes vacations, use Air Force for campaign trips, etc.

Instead of groaning, don't you find it interesting that they are shifting the money from state run hospitals to private hospitals. Who do you think will benefit from that shift? Private doctors, pharmaceutical companies, etc?

Hahhaha. You wingnut azzclowns are going to be belly aching about presidential vacations and air force one flights for a ver loooooooong time. Because after Presidnpent Obama's 4 MORE YEARS, you going to her 8 YEARS of Hillary!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA !!!! SUCK IT RETARDS!!!

This is exactly what Romney did when he ran Massachusetts, then he and his staff paid the state for their hard drives and took them on leaving. The result? .. no records for public access. Though this was questionable under Mass. law, most of us just wanted him out (his last 2 years he was just huckstering for president and just left the Mass governing to his lt. gov.- another trust fund baby).

Jindal might see this as a positive precedent, a tactic that shields him from scrutiny. What he might not realize is that there is a trust issue, and governors who blatantly hide don't get bennies from those of us in the middle. I'm sure Romney's supporters considered him clever, but many of us considered him exploitive and focused on HIS benefits not ours. This shows up in the voting booth in the long run ...

Bobby Jindal couldn't get elected dog catcher outside the state of Louisiana, so don't be too concerned about all the "security" measures his state house operatives are taking to keep their pizza & grits orders secret.

Where is the story on the millions spent by Obama on vacations, golf, OUR AIRPLANE for campaigning? This administration is right out of the sit-com characterized by :moving on up". It's disgusting and you write a story about Jindal aides!!!!

There is no story. Where were you tea drinking clowns when the previous President spent half his time on vacation at his ranch? And all Presidents use Air Force One when running for reelection. Do you expect the President of the United States to go online and book a ticket on United Airlines to go from state to state? You clowns just can't stand the fact that a man of color was elected twice as President of the United States despite all the lies you tea people spread and the money you spent.