Reporters at Mountain State Spotlight wanted to know: “Who is the governor meeting with?”
Gov. Patrick Morrisey has held office since mid-January, after serving three terms as the state’s first Republican attorney general in nearly a century.
As governor, Morrisey has championed business, seeking to slash regulations and taxes to improve the state’s economic fortunes. With all these policies potentially benefiting big businesses, reporters wanted to know who has his ear.
The key lies in the visitor log.
Everyone visiting the governor has to sign a log, which requires the date, the name of the visitor, the organization they represent and whom in the administration they are meeting with.
In early August, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the governor’s office for a copy of that log between the day he took office to July 1.
A week later, the office sent back a copy of that log with meetings up until July 14.
The log showed meetings between the governor, cabinet members and lawmakers in the Legislature. But it also showed meetings with coal executives, insurance lobbyists and power companies, to name a few.
In October, we wanted to know who the governor was meeting with to discuss the rural health fund (He called our story “fake news”). We emailed the governor’s office and asked but received no response.
So, last week, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the visitors log for the prior month to find out what meetings had happened about the fund and who was there.
About a week later, we heard back.
“We have completed our search for public records in our custody and found no records that are responsive to your request,” an attorney wrote. “The governor’s office no longer creates or maintains sign-in sheets for visitors.”
At a press conference the following day, a reporter with Mountain State Spotlight asked the governor when and why the policy changed.
“I don’t know all the details around that, but I want to make sure that we’re streamlining,” he said.
The governor then went on to accuse journalists of abusing the Freedom of Information Act by inundating the office with requests.
“We respond to every FOIA. We’ve been very transparent,” he said. “You know, some of your colleagues are, to be honest, abusive about the process, and it takes a lot of time to respond.”
“Sometimes people go on fishing expeditions, and that takes a lot of our time,” Morrisey continued. “We’d rather just answer your questions, but we’re always going to follow through, follow in accordance with the law, but we’re not going to make a lot of extra time and work for our office when some people are trying to abuse the system.”
We asked Drew Galang, a spokesman for the governor’s office, about when the policy ended and for examples of this abuse Morrisey alleged. In an email, he did not address our questions but said the governor’s office follows public records law.
“Governor Morrisey runs a transparent administration,” he wrote.
Unlike his predecessor, Morrisey has regularly held in-person press briefings and takes questions and follow-up questions from the media.
Morrisey isn’t the first governor to try to hide who he’s meeting with. His predecessor, Sen. Jim Justice, refused to disclose his appointment calendar. The U.S. Senate Democrats’ campaign arm took him to court in a case that ended with the judge ruling in favor of the governor’s office.
We want to know when the governor’s office stopped keeping a log – so Mountain State Spotlight has submitted a record request for logs over the two-month period that had not yet been requested.
Erin Beck contributed reporting