PA GOP Statement on Hearing Scheduled for McGinty Email Stonewalling

HARRISBURG . – The Republican Party of Pennsylvania today released the following statement in reaction to the newly scheduled Commonwealth Court hearing, where the Wolf administration is attempting to stonewall efforts to release Katie McGinty’s public emails from her tenure as Chief of Staff.

The Commonwealth Court announced yesterday the hearing is scheduled on September 13th, 2016 at 11:30am in Harrisburg.

“It’s incredible that Katie McGinty and her allies in the Wolf administration would stonewall for over a year, and go so far as to disobey the Office of Open Records and the Right to Know Law to protect her. Although McGinty and Wolf are trying to hide, taxpayers deserve to know what they were paying her to do, especially given her push for huge middle-class tax hikes and her penchant for enriching herself off the revolving door between government service and corporate boards.” – PA GOP Communications Director Megan Sweeney

On Sunday, The Morning Call wrote about how the Office of Open Records has ordered the Wolf administration to release McGinty’s emails, and instead McGinty’s allies are appealing and fighting this order in court.

The state Republican Party has been trying for more than a year to get emails and work schedule information from Katie McGinty’s tenure as chief of staff for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf.

Today, John Micek of the Harrisburg Patriot-News added the following:

…as Muschick notes, and we reinforce, the administration doesn’t get to consider the why of a request for records. It must, under the law, only consider whether the documents in question meet the definition of a public record and release them accordingly.

One of the great reforms to the state’s Open Records Law in 2008 was the so-called “flip in presumption,” that all records were public unless there was a compelling reason not to release them.

Moreover, McGinty was Wolf’s top adviser and senior aide. Her word carried weight in the front office and the public has a right to know what she did when she had the job.

An administration that prides itself on transparency should keep that in mind.

###