The Freedom Foundation’s Anne Marie Gurney sounds off in The Oregonian today in her op-ed titled “Oregon’s continuing public-records runaround benefits unions.”
The state has taken extreme measures to block the records request she filed in December of 2014 requesting the mailing addresses of home healthcare workers and daycare workers. Soon after she filed the request, the bureaucrats, enabled by the Legislature, passed a law that exempts precisely the information she requested, and then provided a potential work-around.
The work-around law was written so that the addresses of these quasi-state workers may be obtained only if the requestor can show the information will be used in the public’s “best interest.”
Anne Marie said she wanted to use the records so she could educate these workers about their newly affirmed rights under the 2014 Harris v. Quinn U.S. Supreme Court decision to opt out of the union if they choose.
However, the state decided educating these workers about their rights was not in the best public interest. The only interests not served by educating these members is the union bosses’ interests and their bank accounts.
It’s not surprising the request was denied because the unions in Oregon have a stranglehold on the government.
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Oregon’s continuing public-records runaround benefits unions by Anne Marie Gurney
