John Kitzhaber's e-mail

It's been quite a week in re: gubernatorial e-mail.

Yesterday, Oregon's governor, John Kitzhaber, announced that he would resign from office. Last October, an Oregon newspaper reported that the governor's fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, had served as an unpaid energy and economic policymaker at the same time as she was running a private green-energy consulting business. In November, the Government Ethics Commission opened an investigation into Kitzhaber and Hayes. Last week, the state's attorney general announced that a criminal investigation was underway.

Earlier this week, the Willamette Week, the Portland alternative paper that broke the news regarding  Hayes' potential conflicts of interest, reported that a Kitzhaber staffer had requested that the state Department of Administrative Services delete all e-mails from Kitzhaber's personal e-mail accounts that were stored on departmental servers. Kitzhaber's camp maintained that the request covered personal messages that had mistakenly been auto-forwarded to state servers and would not result in the destruction of public records. However, Oregon law specifies that personal e-mail messages that discuss government business are considered public records, and Department of Administrative Services staff were keenly aware that multiple media organizations had filed freedom of information requests that included Kitzhaber's and Hayes's e-mail. They sent the administration's request and their concerns about it up the department's chain of command and the department's director decided that the e-mail should not be deleted.

A few hours after Governor Kitzhaber resigned, U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall revealed that a federal grand jury investigation was underway and issued a sweeping subpoena seeking e-mail, memoranda, and other records that documenting Kitzhaber's environmental and economic policy initiatives, and Hayes' state government work, consulting business and clients, personal and corporate tax returns, and use of state credit cards. The subpoena covers eleven state government agencies and includes records that the state's Justice Department and Government Ethics Commission created or collected during the course of their investigations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which never publicly comments upon investigations in progress, also seems to have taken an interest in Hayes's affairs.

What a mess. I imagine that Salem, Oregon is currently experiencing the sort of surreal standstill that Albany, New York experienced in March 2008, but things are going to start moving again, and very quickly. Eleven state agencies will have to devote a lot of time and effort to responding to the federal subpoena and a host of freedom of information requests. The State Archives must scramble to document the administration of a governor who was re-elected a few months ago, who left office with little advance notice, and whose records are of abiding interest to the feds. Moreover, it must do so as it loses the head of its parent agency: when Kitzhaber's resignation takes effect next Wednesday, Secretary of State Kate Brown will become the state's next governor. However, given the clear-eyed, resolute manner in which the Department of Administrative Services responded to the Kitzhaber administration's e-mail deletion request, the Oregon State Archives' recent history of innovation and effectiveness, and Oregon's tradition of (relatively) clean governance, I suspect that these challenges will be met head-on.

Jeb Bush's e-mail, continued

Earlier this week, Jeb Bush made available online hundreds of thousands of emails he sent and received during his tenure as Florida's governor. As I noted yesterday, the emails Bush's organization placed online contained Social Security numbers, home addresses and phone numbers, and a wealth of other personal information about private citizens. In the wake of the controversy, the Bush camp pledged to review and redact the e-mails, which are identical to the unredacted e-mails held and made accessible to researchers by the Florida State Archives.

Earlier today, Fortune reported that the e-mails approximately 13,000 Social Security numbers and that roughly 12,500 of these numbers were housed within a spreadsheet embedded within a PowerPoint presentation attached to a message that Governor Bush and approximately 50 other people received in October 2003. The other 500 are scattered throughout the correspondence. The Bush team has been able to use software to identify and redact approximately 400 of them, but as of earlier today approximately 100 were still available online because they don’t conform to the usual XXX-XX-XXXX pattern and thus can’t be easily found.

Fortune also reported that a spokesperson for the Florida Department of State, of which the Florida State Archives is part, stated that: “the Department of State is currently reviewing our process for redacting confidential information from documents given to the State Archives.” Ouch.

To add insult to injury, ComputerWorld notes that the Microsoft Personal Storage Table (PST) versions of the Bush e-mails that the Florida State Archives disclosed to researchers and that were, for a short time, made available for downloading on the Bush e-mail site contain a number of old viruses and Trojan Horse applications. Most of them pose little threat to anyone who has a newer computer and up-to-date anti-virus software, but they might cause problems for people who have older machines or don't have anti-virus software installed.

Jeb Bush's e-mail

On Monday, former Florida governor Jeb Bush placed online copies of hundreds of thousands of e-mails he sent and received while in office. Bush is actively exploring the possibility of running for President and has stated that he released the messages to show his commitment to transparency and his embrace of information technology; many political observers have concluded that the release is also meant to prove that he's a dedicated, responsive, and effective executive. Things did not go quite as planned, and the resulting uproar ought to be of interest to any government archivist who might accession electronic records that contain legally restricted information, respond to FOI requests for born-digital or digitized records, or confront the sweeping records requests that invariably occur whenever a former official seeks higher office.

As soon as the e-mails were released, tech journalists and bloggers began exploring the search interface that Bush's staff created and the contents of the messages their searches yielded. They found thousands of Social Security numbers, home addresses, and tons of other personal data that had not been redacted. The Verge, Ars Technica, Buzzfeed, and a host of other media outlets quickly redacted and published copies of numerous e-mails that contained such information, and Bush and his staff quickly promised that they would remove Social Security numbers and other personal data. However, the e-mails – in searchable database form as well as downloadable Microsoft Personal Storage Table (PST) files – were freely available online for almost a day before the Bush team decided to take action.

Bush and his staff were also quick to point fingers. Yesterday, Bush told reporters in Tallahassee that the messages were public records held by the Florida State Archives (which is part of the state's Department of State) and that he and his staff had merely "released what the government gave us." The Bush team also revealed that in May 2014, an attorney representing Bush sent a letter to an unidentified state official asserting that the state was responsible for redacting any legally restricted information found within the e-mails:

We hope these emails will be available permanently to the public, provided the records are first reviewed by state officials in accordance with Florida Statute to ensure information exempt from public disclosure is redacted before release, including social security numbers of Florida citizens who contacted Governor Bush for assistance; personal identifying information related to victims of crime or abuse; confidential law enforcement intelligence; and other information made confidential or exempt by applicable law.

The Florida State Archives holds 26.2 gigabytes of Bush's gubernatorial e-mail, and the catalog record describing the correspondence indicates that the records consist of "PST files" that "must be loaded onto user's hard drive and opened using MS Outlook software." The catalog record makes no mention of access restrictions, and unredacted copies of the files have evidently been disclosed to other researchers. Yesterday, National Public Radio (NPR) reported that many of the e-mails Bush released on Monday had first been disclosed to reporters shortly after they were created or received and that several media organizations, NPR among them, had previously obtained copies of the full set from the Florida State Archives.

At this point in time, I am not going to second-guess or condemn the Florida State Archives. I simply don't know enough about Florida's Sunshine Law, which is more expansive than many other state freedom of information laws, or the Florida State Archives' disclosure protocols to come to any sort of informed conclusion. I do know that the Sunshine Law for the most part bars the disclosure of Social Security numbers, but many freedom of information laws mandate that previously disclosed information cannot be withheld for any reason; given that many of these e-mails had been disclosed to reporters while Bush was in office, the Florida State Archives might have no choice but to release them without redacting them. To date, no one from the Florida State Archives or Florida Department of State has commented upon this matter, but I hope that some sort of explanation will eventually be made.

I am more willing to second-guess Jeb Bush and his associates. As the Miami Herald has pointed out, the May 2014 letter written by Bush's attorney strongly suggests that Bush has been seriously thinking about running for president for quite some time. To my way of thinking, it also suggests that Bush or, at the very least, his lawyers knew that the e-mail contained legally restricted information, decided that the State of Florida was solely responsible for redacting it prior to disclosure, and figured that it was ethically okay to make information that Florida couldn’t or wouldn’t redact a lot easier to find. Requesting a PST file from the Florida State Archives and importing it into Microsoft Outlook doesn’t require a ton of effort or technical know-how, but at least some of the people who are now idly rummaging through the searchable Web database of e-mails created by the Bush campaign probably wouldn’t feel the need to make the effort. Manual redaction and review of e-mail is a pain – trust me on this – but there are numerous tools that will flag and facilitate redaction of Social Security numbers, telephone numbers, and other consistently formatted data. Why didn't the Bush camp make even a modest attempt to weed out the Social Security numbers?

Finally, I must be a bit skeptical about the Bush camp's claims of transparency: the Tampa Bay Times recently reported that Bush used a private e-mail account to conduct all state business and transferred only some of the messages associated with this account to the archives when he left office. Specifically, all messages relating to “politics, fundraising, and personal matters” were removed prior to transfer. I have no problem with purging messages relating to purely personal matters, but the removal of messages relating to political affairs and fundraising efforts raises a few questions in my mind. How were these messages identified? Were they identified as they were sent or received, or was there a massive end-of-term review effort? If the latter, who was involved in the review and what criteria were employed? And, of course, why didn't Bush use a state government e-mail account to conduct state business?

Louisiana governors records bills defeated

Treme, a young green sea turtle found cold-stunned in December 2009, in her temporary home at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, New Orleans, Louisiana, 21 March 2010. Aquarium staff were planning to release Treme and another rehabilitated green sea turtle into the Gulf of Mexico sometime this summer. Owing to the Gulf oil spill, those plans are on hold and the aquarium has taken in 32 oil-slicked turtles, 3 of which have died.

Earlier today, proposed governors' records legislation sponsored by Representative Wayne Waddell (R-Shreveport) died in the Louisiana State House of Representatives. The legislation would have narrowed (but not eliminated) the gubernatorial exemptions in Louisiana's open records law. In addition, it would have compelled governors to transfer their records to the Louisiana State Archives upon leaving office and to open them to researchers 10 years after doing so. A similar bill sponsored by Senator Robert Adley (R-Benton) perished in the Louisiana State Senate last week.

When compared to the oil spill that is wreaking environmental and economic havoc along the Gulf Coast, public records legislation may seem like a trifling concern. However, it's not. Government records document the rights of citizens to vote, receive benefits for which they are eligible, and hold real and other property, and good management and proper disclosure of these records enables citizens to ensure that their government is acting honestly and responsibly. Gubernatorial records, in particular, document important policy and resource allocation decisions, and states such as Louisiana (and New York) do their citizens a real disservice by not insisting that these records be managed, preserved, and made accessible in a clearly defined and systematic manner.

Louisiana has suffered more than its fair share of disasters in recent years, and it seems all but certain that recovering from the oil spill will be slow, difficult, and painful. Ensuring that the records of the state's governors are managed properly and made accessible won't save the state's wetlands, wildlife, or economy, but it will enable the people of Louisiana to assess the words and deeds of their leaders, determine what worked and what didn't, and plan for the future.

Here's hoping that in 2011, Louisiana gets the gubernatorial records legislation its citizens deserve.

Documenting Leadership: getting gubernatorial records right

New York State’s recent gubernatorial history isn’t particularly well-documented. The state’s current governors’ records law, which was first enacted in 1858, allows outgoing governors to do whatever they wish with their records, and one former governor transferred some records to the New York State Archives but may have taken other records with him when he left office. Another is still hanging onto his official records. Yet another left Albany unexpectedly and in great haste, and his successor is still actively using his records.

The records of most 20th-century governors are better preserved, but they’re literally all over the place: the gubernatorial records of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1929-1932) and W. Averill Harriman (1955-1958) are now held by the State Archives, but the records of Herbert Lehman (1933-1942), Charles Poletti (1942), Thomas E. Dewey (1943-1954), Nelson A. Rockefeller (1959-1973), Malcolm Wilson (1973-1974), and Hugh L. Carey (1975-1982) are held by other repositories throughout the state.

Dick Thornburgh

There are a number of reasons for this situation, among them the aforementioned gubernatorial records law and the newness of the state’s archival program, which was established in 1978; New York may be one of the original 13 colonies, but the New York State Archives is the nation’s youngest state archives. However, the Documenting Leadership symposium, and in particular the remarks of Michael Whiteman (Whiteman, Osterman, and Hanna), who worked for Governors Rockefeller and Wilson, and the keynote address by former Pennsylvania Governor (1979-1987) and U.S. Attorney General (1988-1991) Dick Thornburgh shed light on some of the factors that, in the absence of good records laws, promote the preservation of gubernatorial records:

A general appreciation of history and historical research. Thornburgh is a lifelong reader of history books, and noted that he was struck by the high value that authors place upon archival records documenting the thoughts and actions of their subjects. Moreover, he drew upon his own records when writing a book, and several researchers wanted access to them shortly after he left public life.

A sense of one’s own place in history. Michael Whiteman noted that it’s not surprising that the Rockefeller and Wilson administrations are likely among the best-documented in New York State’s history: Rockefeller was the scion of one of the nation’s most prominent families and clearly believed that he was doing significant things. Thornburgh led the state’s response to the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, and although he did not discuss the impact that this experience had upon him, it may have helped him see himself a shaper, not a mere observer, of history. However, he did note he saw his archives as one means of ensuring that his legacy would not be left entirely to “the tender mercies of the media.”

A propensity to keep, not toss, stuff. Thornburgh is a self-described “pack rat,” and at the time he became governor, he had a large collection of materials relating to an unsuccessful Congressional campaign stored in his attic. They ended up in the hands of a family friend -- now his official archivist -- who spent the next eight years organizing them. The friend then went on to care for his gubernatorial records and to oversee their transfer to the Pennsylvania State Archives and to help him establish a permanent archival home for his voluminous personal papers.

Willingness to live with a little embarrassment. Thornburgh has concluded that the benefits of allowing researchers to access files reflecting his status as the client of a private attorney or gubernatorial counsel outweigh the risk that embarrassing information might come to light. Of course, governors who have left public life are more likely to take this view; those who still harbor political ambitions will likely be less relaxed about the thought of allowing unfettered access to their official records.

Ongoing involvement in and support of archival programs. As Michael Whiteman noted, Nelson Rockefeller and other members of the Rockefeller family established the Rockefeller Archive Center in order to ensure that their activities and those of the philanthropic organizations were properly documented. Working with the University of Pittsburgh Library System, Thornburgh developed a full-fledged archival program that focuses on his personal papers and those of former colleagues. He has been active in raising the funds needed to staff the program and hold public events, publish a newsletter, give awards to law students seeking to enter public service and to professors who use archival records as teaching materials, and digitize the collections. In both instances, the level of personal commitment to sustaining an archival program -- and to ensuring that gubernatorial records are supplemented by personal papers that document the broader context of a governor’s life and work -- is pretty impressive.

I nonetheless remain convinced that the above things work best when combined with, not forced to serve as substitutes for, modern public records laws and effective records management. A strong tradition of proper management, preservation, and provision of access to gubernatorial records -- another thing that New York State lacks -- also helps.

Documenting Leadership: media and records

One of the benefits of blogging is its real-time nature: stuff happens, and posts follow almost almost immediately afterward. One of the drawbacks of blogging its its real-time nature: a lone blogger can only do so much. At the end of an intense week, I “desymposed” by watching part of the first season of The X Files on DVD and playing Google’s Pac Man game, the disappearance of which is both an annoyance and a relief. As a result, I’m running behind. However, I hope that this post and its successors will be better for having been written by someone took some time to reflect on what transpired.

One of the most entertaining sessions at the Documenting Leadership symposium centered upon journalists’ use of government records. The panelists were sharp, funny, and expressed a range of perspectives. A number of themes came to the fore:

A reporter’s background knowledge is indispensable. Mickey Carroll (Quinnipiac University Polling Institute) emphasized that most reporters don’t have time to sift through records. They do broad reading, cultivate reliable sources, and draw upon their knowledge of the players and their context-- which takes young reporters a long time to develop -- in order to make sense of the tidbits of information they find.

Rex Smith, Ethan Riegelhaupt, and Mickey Carroll

Records are the lifeblood of investigative journalism. Sandra Peddie (Newsday) asserted that as investigative reporter, she has both the time to file freedom of information requests and the obligation to “get things right.” Government records were at the coreof her exposes of state pension system abuses and the inner workings of some of Long Island’s “special districts,” and she’s currently fighting to obtain records documenting the inner workings of the office of Suffolk County Executive (and gubernatorial candidate) Steve Levy. Ethan Riegelhaupt (New York Times), whose employer has the resources needed to sustain in-depth investigative journalism and mine government databases, concurred, as did Peter Elkind (Fortune), whose biography of Eliot Spitzer relies heavily upon records that illuminated the complexities of his subject’s political decisions and motives.

The needs of government and the press sometimes conflict. Riegelhaupt noted that as former government counsel, he understood that officials need space to determine policy and that closed-door meetings are sometimes necessary; as a newspaper attorney, he also recognized the need for access to information. However, Elkind stressed that although we seem to have reached a point where day-to-day, intense coverage of politics has gotten in the way of getting things done, officials are responsible for running the government and reporters are responsible for unearthing and disseminating information about government.

Proactive disclosure is a good thing. Noting that President Obama has directed federal agencies to disclose federal records in anticipation of receipt of freedom of information requests, Mark Mahoney (Glens Falls Post-Star) asserted that he wanted to see state and local government do the same. Moderator Rex Smith (Albany Times-Union) also endorsed this practice, which may sometimes displease journalists: the city of Chicago has just started posting summary information about all of the freedom of information requests it receives, and as a result the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times can no longer hide their probes from one another.

Peter Elkind, Mark Mahoney, and Sandra Peddie

Freedom of information laws aren’t perfect. Elkind was stunned to discover that the New York State Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) permitted the withholding of records that, in his view, should have been disclosed and that the law doesn’t cover legislative records. Caroll noted that the law itself may have had an inhibiting effect: prior to FOIL’s enactment in the 1970s, many government officials were actually more willing to share records with reporters than they are now.

Journalists are still trying come to terms with the new information ecosystem. Riegelhaupt noted that everyone is still grappling with the implications of having ready access to vast quantities of information and to the perspectives not only of officials and reporters but also of millions of other people. Mahoney noted that in this environment, engaging readers on a personal level -- via blogs such as his (highly recommended) Your Right to Know -- is essential. Riegelhaupt emphasized that the changes are going to be even more profound: newspapers and other media outlets can now publish the texts of officials’ speeches, copies of government databases, and large quantities of other government records. As a result, their Web sites will both serve as the first draft of history. Peddie noted that when newspapers put electronic government records on their Web sites, these sites become important public access points. As a government archivist, I have concerns about ceding this role to the media, but I also understand that the media also has an interest in providing authentic information and that most people will view media sites as sufficiently trustworthy.

Archivists must also come to grips with this new ecosystem. Smith and Riegelhaupt mentioned in passing that archivists are going to have to grapple with whether and how to preserve Web sites, blogs, and other new information resources. As New York State Archivist Chris Ward pointed out, the New York State Archives is working on it -- and so is the profession as a whole. Not surprisingly, journalists also want faster, easier access to the records that archivists have. Mahoney stressed that reporters really appreciate ready access to digitized records: they’re a big help to people who have tight deadlines, and they enable readers to evaluate the quality of reporting. We’re working on that, too -- even if scarce resources force us to move slowly than anyone would like.

Documenting Leadership: keynote and first session

Today was the first day of Documenting Leadership: A Symposium on Public Executive Records in the 21st Century. About 100 journalists, current and former public officials, policy researchers, archivists, and records managers were present, and more will be coming tomorrow.

I’ve had a very long day -- it began at 8:00 AM and ended at 8:30 PM, and the festivities begin again tomorrow at 8:00 AM -- so this post is going to focus on today’s keynote address and the first panel discussion. I’ll be playing catch-up tomorrow and over the weekend.

Richard Norton Smith

Richard Norton Smith, who has written biographies of several presidents and New York governors Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey and who is currently working on a biography of Nelson Rockefeller, got the day off to a great start: Noting that 16 U.S. Presidents have had gubernatorial experience, he asserted that the fact that 4 of these presidents came from New York really shouldn’t be surprising: New York’s governors have reformed the civil service, altered industrial and labor practices, spearheaded mammoth public work projects, oversaw the development of an effective public health system, championed civil rights, and fought water and air pollution. For decades, New York functioned as the laboratory for federal reform.

He then discussed how his research has led him to value both archival records, which shed unique light on the personal qualities of executive leaders and the nuances of their thoughts and deeds, and oral histories, which may be flawed but help to fill in the gaps in the documentary record. I was particularly struck by his assertions concerning executive leaders’ attitudes toward their records: in his experience, presidents think they did a pretty good job, and they don’t lie awake trying to figure out how to cover up their mistakes or misdeeds. However, they do lie awake thinking of how to prove the Washington Post and the New York Times wrong. Noting that history is always more generous than headline writers, he expressed the hope that New York’s governors would eventually recognize that history is not a continuation of the New York Post.

Robert Ward and Robert Sink

Some of the themes that Smith touched upon returned during the first panel discussion of the day, “Public Policy and the Public Interest.” Robert Ward (Rockefeller Institute of Government) highlighted several factors that may help to account for the divergence between federal and New York State laws governing executive records: declining gubernatorial and legislative interest in tackling the large-scale issues that commanded the attention of the state’s governors for much of the 20th century, the “broad degrading” of political discourse, the State Legislature’s efforts to limit executive power, and growing disbelief in the value of public institutions. Moderator Rex Smith (Albany Times-Union) noted that the relatively new but widely held belief that government is inherently ineffective has also contributed to the situation.

Rex Smith and Ned Regan

Former State Comptroller Ned Regan (Baruch College, CUNY), who transferred his official records to the State Archives when he left office and periodically consults them, asserted that New York’s political circumstances may also be to blame. New York is a “strong governor” state, and its current “three men in a room” approach to politics -- only the governor, the Senate majority leader, and the Assembly speaker wield any real power -- emerged because it’s the only way that the legislative branch can stand up to the executive. However, this system breeds legislative dysfunction, and the fate of executive records is one of many important matters that legislators have not addressed. Robert Ward, who asserted that the “three men in a room” phenomenon is rooted in legislators’ self interest and their constituents’ failure to hold them to account, agreed that legislative dysfunction helps to account for the state’s failure to modernize laws relating to executive records.

Gerald Benjamin (SUNY New Paltz), who will participate in one of tomorrow’s panels, offered an interesting comment from the floor: unlike Smith, whose work centers upon people who have been out office for some time, he’s found that executives dealing with the day-to-day grind of politics often have a short-term interest in tampering with the historical record. Moreover, New York is facing an even more unsettling problem: loss of institutional capacity to deal with records. Responding in part to this comment, Ned Regan offered an incisive observation: “systems are more important than competence.” Indeed: while at the reception, a colleague and I concluded it’s better for an organization to have a long-lived, workaday records management program than to have a records management dynamo whose influence fades after his or her departure.

In retrospect, I’m kind of surprised that none of the panelists devoted much attention to Watergate. I’ve always suspected that one of the reasons that New York lacks a strong executive records law is that, to date, it hasn’t had a governor who has abused the powers of the office as egregiously as Richard Nixon abused those of the presidency. However, all of the other factors identified by the panelists -- the narrowed focus of gubernatorial and legislative effort, the strident tone of current political discourse, cynicism about government, and legislative dysfunction -- are certainly in play.

Robert Sink (formerly of the New York Public Library) highlighted how the problems identified by the other panelists fed a scandal centering upon municipal executive records. New York City had a weak public records law and a weak archival program and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was intent upon reorganizing city government and had a “defiant attitude” toward the concept of freedom of information, slashed funding for the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS), appointed a commissioner who had no archival or records management experience, and sought to rob it of its independence.

As Mayor Giuliani was preparing to leave office, he asserted that DORIS, which lost half of its staff as a result of budget cuts that he himself had made, couldn’t properly care for his records. He wanted to transfer them to a non-profit organization that bore his name, allow the organization to limit access to certain materials, and engage an archival consulting firm to process them; it soon came to light that he had offered his records to several non-governmental repositories, all of which turned him down.

These actions prompted a public outcry, and the records were returned to DORIS after processing. However, the city has not substantially increased support for DORIS, and its public records law, while strengthened, is still relatively weak. Moreover, even though a reputable archival consulting firm processed the records, the possibility remains that the records were “cleansed” while they were outside public control. If New York City had a strong public records law and a strong government archival program that was insulated from political pressure, the integrity of the records wouldn’t be subject to question.

A lively discussion of the merits of preserving public records in public archives ensued. Bob Sink noted that if a gubernatorial administration works with state archives staff to manage the transfer of records, the records’ chain of custody will be firmly established. Moreover, New York’s state archivist is not a political appointee, and the State Archives itself is not directly controlled by the governor. Archivists in the audience pointed out that state archives are repositories of other government records and knowledge of the workings of state government and that, unlike some private repositories that mandate that the archivists who process a politician’s records share that politician’s political views, they do not factor political beliefs into their hiring decisions.

All in all, a great start. More tomorrow . . . .

New York State Archivist Chris Ward on gubernatorial records

Last Friday evening, New York State Archivist Chris Ward appeared on Capital Tonight, YNN Albany's statewide public affairs program, to discuss gubernatorial recordkeeping practices in New York State, proposed legislation concerning gubernatorial records management and transfer of archival gubernatorial records to the State Archives, and an upcoming symposium on electronic records. In the process of doing so, she explained -- in clear and easy-to-grasp terms -- what the New York State Archives does and why preserving gubernatorial records is so important. It's a nice segment, even if the quality of the video that Capital Tonight posted to YouTube leaves something to be desired.

Reminder: Executive Records Symposium, Albany, New York, May 20-21

The New York State Capitol, as seen from the Empire State Plaza, 24 November 2008.

If you have a personal or professional interest in ensuring that the official records of presidents, governors, attorneys general, mayors, and other elected executives are preserved and made accessible, you might want to come to Albany, New York on 20-21 May -- and make arrangements to do so by 17 May.

The records of elected executives document important policy and resource allocation decisions. However, in New York and many other states, the records of elected executives are not always transferred to the state archives or to other repositories. The gaps in New York State laws concerning the disposition of gubernatorial records have gotten some media attention lately, but other states, local governments, and the federal government face similar problems. Moreover, many executive records are now created or maintained in electronic systems; as a result, the days of acquiring executive records via dumpster diving or negotiation with an executive's heirs are pretty much over.

On 20-21 May 2010, the New York State Archives Partnership Trust and the Albany Law School’s Government Law Center will join forces to highlight the need for effective executive recordkeeping at all. Documenting Leadership: A Symposium on Public Executive Records in the 21st Century will explore the importance of preserving the records generated by governors and other elected public executives, including presidents, attorneys general, and mayors.

Former U.S. Attorney General and Governor of Pennsylvania Richard Thornburgh will deliver the symposium's keynote address, "The Legacy of an Executive: A Governor’s Perspective," and nationally recognized Presidential historian Richard Norton Smith will deliver an address entitled "Telling the Executive Story: The Thrill of the Chase."

In addition, attorneys, journalists, and past and current government officials will take part in panel discussions focusing on:

• Public Policy and the Public Interest
• Transparency, Executive Records, and the Media
• Executive Records: Access and Disclosure
• Access in the Digital Age
• Executive Records as Legacy

This event, which will be held at Albany Law School, is free and open to the public and will include a May 20th reception at the Governor's Mansion. However, attendees must register by May 17. Click here for online registration, detailed location information, and the full program.

Executive records symposium, Albany, New York, 20-21 May 2010

Do you have a personal or professional interest in ensuring that the official records of presidents, governors, attorneys general, mayors, and other elected executives receive the proper care? If so, you might want to come to Albany, New York on 20-21 May.

The records of elected executives document important policy and resource allocation decisions, and in many instances are essential to the study of state history and state government. However, in New York and many other states, the records of elected executives are not always transferred to the state archives or to other repositories. Moreover, most of these records are now created or maintained in electronic systems and are thus at risk of being rendered inaccessible by changes in technology or lost as a result of human error, decay of storage media, or equipment failure.

On 20-21 May 2010, the New York State Archives Partnership Trust and the Albany Law School’s Government Law Center will join forces to highlight the need for effective executive recordkeeping at all. Documenting Leadership: A Symposium on Public Executive Records in the 21^st Century will explore the importance of the records generated by governors and other elected public executives, including presidents, attorneys general, and mayors.

Richard Thornburgh, the former Governor of Pennsylvania (1979-1987) and U.S. Attorney General (1988-1991), and Richard Norton Smith, the nationally recognized Presidential historian, will deliver keynote addresses.

In addition, panelists drawn from the ranks of government, the news media, historians, public policy researchers, and the legal community will discuss the issues associated with managing, preserving, and accessing records of elected public officials who have executive responsibilities:

• The importance of executive-level records for the administration of government and implementation of public policy, and, at an administration’s end, for the historical record
  
• The special challenges of protecting sensitive information while assuring government transparency and accountability
  
• Best practices and model programs in other states and at the federal level
• Elements of model legislation

And to top it all off, on the evening of 20 May a reception for speakers and attendees will be held at the New York State Executive Mansion (reservation absolutely, positively required!)

For more details about Documenting Leadership symposium, which will be held in the Dean Alexander Moot Court Room of Albany Law School's 1928 Building, check out the online program. Please note that although this event is free and open to the public, advance registration for both the symposium and the reception is required.