A lawyer for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has told a court in Florida that a public records request on conversations the governor directed while making judicial appointments should be shielded from public view.
According to a report from Orlando Weekly, the attorney for DeSantis cited "executive privilege" which has led Phil Padovano — a former appeals court judge serving as the plaintiff's attorney — to label it unprecedented and clearly illegal.
At issue is a request from a plaintiff identified in court documents as "J. Doe," seeking information on DeSantis after the governor told a conservative radio host that a group of “six or seven pretty big legal conservative heavyweights” pitched in to help him select Florida Supreme Court candidates.
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With the DeSantis administration balking, Padovano appeared before a three-judge panel representing the Tallahassee-based 1st District Court of Appeal, that a 1972 state constitutional amendment related to providing public access to government documents does not allow the governor to block the request.
Addressing the court, he stated, "The concept of executive privilege has no application whatsoever in the field of public records. It never has. The right to examine a public record is a fundamental constitutional right that is subject only to the exceptions that are created by statute."
Representing DeSantis, Nathan Forrester, a state senior deputy solicitor general. told the court executive privilege applies in this case and then added that it covers, “... documents whose disclosure would threaten the confidentiality that is necessary to perform an enumerated constitutional duty.”
The report adds, "State and national media organizations and open-government advocacy groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case, arguing that such use of executive privilege would undermine the state’s broad public-records laws," adding, "One brief filed by a coalition that includes groups such as the League of Women Voters and the Florida Center for Government Accountability said the circuit-court ruling 'upends decades of jurisprudence interpreting' the laws."
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