Mike Causey’s extravagant reminder: NC has a problem with secrecy | Opinion

News & Observer reporter Dan Kane recently approached state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey at the end of a Council of State meeting to ask about an unusual payment arrangement at the Department of Insurance.

Kane said the commissioner told him he didn’t have time to answer questions. What he should have said was, “Gotta go. I’ll call you from the car.” After all, working while rolling down the road is supposedly why Causey had the state pay his friend as much as $84,000 in one year to drive him around the state and as far as New Mexico.

That friend, Roger Blackwell, is active in the Republican Party in Randolph County and is an Archdale City Council member. The Department of Insurance pays him $44 an hour as a part-time “deputy secretary/commissioner I.”

Blackwell told Kane the arrangement is about efficiency. “Believe it or not, when (Causey) is in the car on the road he’s doing work,” Blackwell said. “He’s returning emails, making calls that he couldn’t be doing driving himself. It’s like an office on wheels.”

However, having an office on wheels doesn’t entitle you to roll over public accountability. Getting state documents concerning the Republican commissioner’s hiring of Blackwell and other friends has been difficult. A public records request for Blackwell’s travel records and expense reports has been pending since August.

Reporting on Causey’s cozy arrangements shows the power of sunlight in revealing the questionable use of tax dollars. But across North Carolina, public officials are pulling down the shades on that sunlight. Some ignore or deny legitimate public records requests. Others stall until the reporters have to move on.

In the most blatant case, state legislators inserted a provision in the state budget that exempts them from public records law. Reporters, advocates and members of the public seeking documents and emails related to the drafting of legislation can now be told, “It’s none of your business.”

The News & Observer tested legislator responsiveness by requesting emails received on one day – Sept. 19, 2023. Of 170 lawmakers, 38 provided emails, though some withheld communications with other members.

That result was no surprise. The North Carolina General Assembly has long been prone to secrecy. That tendency has become the rule since Republicans took control of the legislature following the 2010 election. Public hearings and debates are increasingly limited. The state budget has become a vessel for numerous policies that receive no public airing, such as the blackout on legislative transparency.

Ensuring citizens’ access to the workings of their government is fundamental to a democracy. It’s no coincidence that public records laws are being ignored or undercut in North Carolina and other states as democracy is being challenged. Government of, by and for the people is being undermined by gerrymandering, restrictions on voting, anonymous and unlimited spending on campaigns – including judicial races – and a former president who says media reports are fake news and elections are rigged.

As these assaults have made government less reflective of the public will, the ability to expose government misspending and misdeeds also has weakened. The legislature’s nonpartisan Program Evaluation Division, which uncovered millions of dollars in misspending over a 14-year period, was dissolved in 2021.

Meanwhile, the media, and newspapers in particular, have fewer resources to conduct investigations of government programs and office holders. Citizen advocates, such as elections watchdog Bob Hall, find their requests of records for results of investigations long delayed or denied.

One immediate fix to the growing disregard for transparency would be to set deadlines for agencies to respond to public records requests, and require them to provide reasons if they don’t comply.

Another improvement would be to require agencies to pay the legal fees when they’re found to have wrongly denied a public records request.

Finally, North Carolinians should push for a state constitutional amendment that protects the public’s right to see government records outside of those reasonably protected by personal privacy.

The government’s business is the people’s business. When it’s not, it’s no longer the people’s government.