On Oct. 19, we made a simple records request: What is Gov. Bruce Rauner’s email address? Instead of revealing how folks might reach His Raunerness, the governor’s staff this week told Illinois Times that the governor needs an additional five business days to disclose the governor’s email address. The state Freedom of Information Act, after all, allows public officials to extend by five days the five-day deadline for responding to requests, so long as there is good reason. The law specifies five acceptable reasons. So we asked for the reason. “The requested records have not been located in the course of routine search and additional efforts are being made to locate them,” replied Christina McClernon, a lawyer in the governor’s office, quoting from the statute. Really? Did you get the dizzy spells when aiming at the excuse-of-the-day dartboard? Oh, well. In a somewhat related development, the governor, rather than turn over his appointment calendar in response to an opinion from the attorney general who says that it’s a public record and a FOIA lawsuit from Illinois Times, has hired Brown, Hay and Stephens, a Springfield law firm, to argue that how the governor spends his time is none of the public’s business. The state museum is closed. The homeless are more homeless than ever. The comptroller says the state is broke. The state is stiffing lottery winners. Wall Street says our credit sucks. And Rauner has the money spigots open to keep his office operations secret.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2015.
