Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is keeping many items locked away, but Florida leaders must face greater scrutiny.
By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published January 12, 2004
As Howard Dean emerges as the favorite to win the Democratic nomination for president, his record as governor of Vermont is attracting plenty of attention from his opponents.
But a sizable chunk of that record is under lock and key in a warehouse near Montpelier.
Dean ordered dozens of boxes of his records sealed for 10 years, citing Vermont's executive privilege law. His Democratic opponents have accused him of hiding information that could provide insight into his ability to govern.
In Florida, the rules are different.
If retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Graham emerges as a possible vice presidential running mate for Dean or another Democrat, opponents will be able to visit the state archives and sift through a mountain of public records from his eight years as governor.
If Gov. Jeb Bush gets the urge to run for president in 2008, as some Republicans hope, his two terms in Tallahassee also would be an open book.
Florida has broader open records laws than Vermont, and a governor in Florida does not have the power to keep records confidential after leaving office.
"All records are open unless there is a specific statutory exemption," said Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation. "A governor can't say, "I want to keep this confidential."'
Bush said that is how it should be for governors, including Dean.
"I don't think he should be hiding behind that law, to be honest with you," Bush said. As a front-runner, "all that stuff's going to come out. That's just the nature of the most intense political process known to man: running for president. And I don't think he's going to be able to protect himself from that by hiding his records."
Speeches, letters, memos and other documents generated by former governors often are of little interest to anyone other than students and historians - until that former governor runs for higher office.
Then reporters and political opponents wade through documents, digging for clues about the candidate's philosophy, inconsistencies and scandal.
There are no standard rules for how states treat records left behind by former governors.
In Texas, President Bush had his documents from his tenure as governor sent to his father's presidential library at Texas A&M University. Open government groups complained, and the state attorney general ruled that the documents had to be turned over to the state archives.
The records are available under state public records laws and are being cataloged. They eventually will be returned to the Bush presidential library.
In Florida, the walls of the state archives in Tallahassee are lined with files of former governors. Boxes are filled with speeches, schedules, photos, letters, internal memos and other official documents.
In Vermont, the governor can claim executive privilege and keep papers sealed for years after leaving office. Dean ordered 145 boxes of papers sealed while opening 190 boxes to public view. His two immediate predecessors also sealed some of their papers, but for shorter periods of time.
A Washington political group, Judicial Watch, has filed a lawsuit to try to force all of Dean's records to be opened. Dean has said he is willing to let the judge decide which records should be released.
"Governors seal records for particular amounts of time - in my case, some of the records - to protect people's privacy, to protect the privacy that was given to advisers," Dean said during a Jan. 4 debate in Iowa sponsored by the Des Moines Register.
As examples, Dean cited letters from people who wrote to him during the controversy over civil unions in Vermont.
"I think if somebody is gay and they wrote me that, and they don't care to have that information disclosed to the public, that's their right," Dean said.
In Florida, a similar letter to the governor would be a public record.
But with Dean riding high in the polls, and reporters burrowing into his past for evidence of flip-flops or sweetheart deals, Dean's decision has become a political problem.
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said Dean's unwillingness to open the records undercuts his criticism of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, "who have run the most secretive administration in history."
"You are ducking the question," Lieberman told Dean in the debate. "You should not force a judge to force you to do what you know is right, and which will assure public confidence."
Even the term "executive privilege" carries a sinister connotation, three decades after Richard Nixon employed the term to deny release of the infamous White House tapes during the Watergate scandal.
Florida's most notorious case of sealed records involved the so-called Johns Committee, which gained a reputation for witch hunts as it probed for evidence of homosexuality, communism and support for civil rights at state universities in the 1950s. Those records stayed under control of the state Senate until 1992, when voters approved a constitutional amendment that required the files to be opened.
Told of Vermont's "executive privilege" law, Gov. Jeb Bush smiled and said: "Like Nixon. We don't have that here. I know that for a fact. There are times when I wish we did, probably."
The Vermont Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that a governor may assert executive privilege to preserve "the confidentiality of intergovernmental documents reflecting advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising parts of the process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated."
Based on the 1990 case, Dean last year signed an agreement with the Vermont secretary of state and attorney general that set guidelines for the paper trail that covered his 11 years as governor.
The four-page memorandum of understanding states that all of Dean's records will be open to the public, "commencing on Jan. 10, 2013." A two-term President Dean would be out of the White House by the time the records were opened.
Even the deputy secretary of state in Vermont says officials aren't sure exactly what records are in Dean's secret vault.
"Until they're open, under executive privilege, the way it's been treated here is, there's been no discussion of the contents," Bill Dalton said. "It's only a discussion of the length of closure. ... Nobody is looking at that issue."
- Information from Times wires was used in this report.
