FOIA Sucks In Delaware. Will Sen. Townsend’s Bill Increase Public Access?
Community activist Amy Roe said she is suing the city of Newark after it denied her open records request for the minutes of closed-door sessions in 2013 and 2014, where they discussed a controversial data center plan.
Roe called going to court to enforce her request for documents “costly and burdensome.”
“The system is so broken,” said Roe, who recently became president of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. “I don’t want to have to sue my own city. It’s just horrendous.”
Legislation sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend aims to make it easier to obtain records through the state’s Freedom of Information Act. But the bill keeps the court system as the only avenue that can legally compel a government body to reveal information it would rather keep under wraps.
Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act applies to public bodies and requires access to documents and meetings, unless they fall under one of 19 exemptions. Those include investigative files, autopsy records, documents related to pending litigation and state lawmakers’ emails.
How It (sorta) Started:
In 2013, a proposed massive data center and an accompanying 279-megawatt natural gas-fired combined heat and power plant on the University of Delaware’s STAR Campus was seen as a positive way to increase economic development. But public backlash quickly grew, led by Roe and other activists.
In 2013 and 2014, City Council held 11 executive sessions to receive legal advice regarding the project.
According to Delaware’s FOIA law, entities can meet in executive session for several reasons, including to discuss pending or potential litigation. Those minutes can only be hidden as long as “public disclosure would defeat the lawful purpose of the executive session, but no longer.”
However, Newark officials have continued to deny Roe access to those records, despite the fact that UD terminated the lease for the project in 2014 and all litigation concluded in 2017. The city has argued that attorney-client privilege does not expire and can therefore keep them secret forever.
Townsend’s proposed legislation would reduce the time members of the public have to wait for a response to a request for documents, going to 10 business days instead of 15. It would allow residents of other states to request documents, prohibit charging fees to some members of the public, including journalists and academics, and it would remove the broad FOIA exemption currently enjoyed by the University of Delaware and Delaware State University. It would also ban officials from automatically withholding documents from public view by labeling them as “investigative.”
John Flaherty is the spokesperson for the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. He said he likes many of the changes the legislation makes to create more transparency.
But he also criticized the bill for a provision that would allow officials to deny requests as “overly-broad,” “unduly burdensome” or “abusive.”
Sounds like an all-purpose fig-leaf to turn down request after request. Either make that provision much tighter or deep-six it.
Also:
When the city of Newark denied Roe’s request for the executive session minutes, she appealed to the Delaware Department of Justice, which issued her a favorable decision.
But the city rejected that decision and a spokesperson for Delaware Attorney General Jennings said their opinions are “non-binding.”
“As Newark has correctly identified,” AG Press Secretary Caroline Harrison said. “FOIA violations are only enforceable voluntarily or by a court of law.”
The bill should authorize, if not mandate, that the AG’s office takes the lead on FOIA lawsuits.
Let’s see if the draft bill is improved or weakened before it’s introduced in January. I think this new General Assembly is poised to pass something stronger. Will the sponsor insist on incrementalism?
Justifiable Infanticide? I can’t believe this story is not getting more attention:
The police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley as he sat in his mother’s lap in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Miss., in June “was justified,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office announced on Monday.
“Today, the Office of the Attorney General announced it has completed the review of a June 14, 2026 incident in Senatobia involving one officer with the Senatobia Police Department,” the Republican attorney general’s statement said. “In this incident, the Attorney General’s Office found the use of force was justified. Pursuant to Section 45-1-6 of the Mississippi Code, the review followed an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.”
Officers were responding to a shoplifting call alleging that Wiley’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and Latoya Ferrell had stolen a pack of diapers. The women exited the store with the child as officers arrived, entered their vehicle and began to leave the parking lot. Officers drew their weapons, and Vellesiya Wiley lifted her son up to show the officers that a child was in the car. One officer fired into the vehicle, killing the baby as she held him. A bullet also wounded Ferrell.
The justification for the shooting? See if this sounds familiar:
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which investigated the shooting, alleged on the day of the shooting that “the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one.”
Ice Ice, Baby.
Neither woman has been charged with a crime, and officials have not released any evidence of shoplifting. Wiley and both women are Black; the officer identified as the subject of the investigation, Hunter Foster, is white.
But, you already knew that.
Rethugs Threaten, D Stands Up To Them. Gee, ya think that DOJ will take these threats seriously?:
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) fired back at right-wingers on Monday after they threatened her staff and implied she could be shot for saying future corruption probes into Trump administration allies could deter young conservatives from going to work for the White House.
The Michigan Democrat slammed the backlash from Republicans and conservative influencers who, she pointed out, have cheered from the sidelines as President Donald Trump leverages the justice system against his political foes.
“Spare me the pearl-clutching — especially from Republican Members of Congress and online MAGA grifters who have cheered President Trump’s weaponization of the government against those he doesn’t like,” she said in a statement posted on social media.
The right was furious over the weekend after clips circulated from Slotkin’s Oct. 13 appearance on Vox’s podcast “America, Actually,” when she told host Astead Herndon that she saw growing American outrage over corruption and hoped to find bipartisan allies in Congress to tackle the issue.
Mike Davis, a conservative lawyer and political strategist who was a key adviser to the second Trump administration on judicial nominations, penned an op-ed for Fox News in which he said Slotkin should be investigated by the Justice Department and Senate ethics officials for her “treacherous” statement, which he claimed would have a chilling effect on people working in the Trump White House.
On X, Davis took things a step further.
“If [Slotkin] deploys these fascist tactics, like illegal arrests and political persecutions to intimidate young Americans with opposing political views, she will learn why we have the Second Amendment,” he said in a post. “Fuck her and her CIA tactics.”
Wow. That’s almost as serious as someone spelling out ’86 47′ in seashells.
Other online right-wingers targeted the senator’s staff. One conservative poster shared the names and images of a dozen people they identified as Slotkin’s employees to their more than half a million X followers. And Wade Miller, executive director of the conservative think tank the Center for Renewing America, declared that every Slotkin staffer should face “an avalanche of subpoenas” to hammer home a signal that “the purpose of government is not to target those you disagree with.”
‘The purpose of government is not to target those who you disagree with.’
It’s official: Irony is dead.
Traitor Trump Delays Delivery Of Patriot Missiles To Ukraine:
The White House has blocked the transfer of Patriot missiles to Ukraine, US officials have said.
The transfer of interceptor missiles from countries friendly to Ukraine requires the approval of Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary.
While Mr Hegseth has not formally rejected the deals involving countries other than the US – as the manufacturer, it retains control over the weapons – he has not completed the steps required to approve them, sources told The Washington Post.
Last week, a Ukrainian official told the Post that Kyiv had “only a couple” of missiles – vital to intercepting Russian missiles – left in its stockpile.
The US president has continued to attack Mr Zelensky and pivoted further in support of Russia. He has cited Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries as the reason for ballooning fuel costs, despite them being widely attributed to his war on Iran.
He has also claimed his Ukrainian counterpart is avoiding ending the war to stay in power, and called for him to be replaced.
On Monday, Mr Trump told Mr Zelensky to “remember” their Oval Office argument at the beginning of his second term, in which he and JD Vance, the vice-president, attacked the Ukrainian leader and ejected him from the White House.
“Zelensky is a man that should’ve had this war settled a long time ago. If he would have listened to me and he remembered the Oval Office, he would have had this settled a long time ago,” Mr Trump told reporters before a visit to Kansas.
“I think it’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.”
He also told reporters: “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven’t been doing much.”
Here’s what former Reagan State Department official Robert Kagan said:
For the first time in its 250 years, America is in a de facto alliance with a dictator waging a war of conquest against a neighbor with President Donald Trump’s unprecedented steps to aid Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.
“We haven’t. Ever,” said Robert Kagan, a top State Department official in Ronald Reagan’s White House now with the Brookings Institution, adding that a comparable scenario would have been President Franklin Roosevelt siding with Hitler or Stalin in 1939. “Mind-boggling that we have a president in this position.
Kagan said the timing of Trump’s open alliance with Putin again raises questions as to what leverage the Russian dictator might have against him, considering Trump seems to be antagonizing more hawkish, anti-Putin members of his own party only weeks before the midterm elections.
“Why pick that fight with his own party at this moment? Putin, on the other hand, has every reason to want Trump to do all this before the election, before he may become a lame duck,” Kagan said. “The answer may go to whatever lies at the core of Trump’s relationship with Putin. Could be friendship, except neither of these guys has friends. So maybe it’s something else. Who can say?”
What do you want to talk about?
