Weber State professor wins bid to open campaign finance records

Weber State professor wins bid to open campaign finance records

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SALT LAKE CITY — A physics professor, curious about local political spending, has won his Utah Supreme Court bid to open records from the former Envision Ogden civic group.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday announced its decision in favor of Dan Schroeder, a Weber State University physics professor who also identifies himself as an "educator, number cruncher and activist," ordering the release of bank statements and other financial documents from the now-defunct nonprofit organized by former Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey in 2007.

"I wasn't just going to let something like that be forgotten," Schroeder said of the yearslong records battle.

"Under GRAMA, even nonpublic records may be released if the interests favoring disclosure outweigh those favoring nondisclosure," according to the decision authored by Utah Supreme Court Justice Matthew Durrant. "We conclude that the records should be disclosed because Ogden's citizens have a right to know about potential public corruption, and the state's closure of the investigation years ago substantially reduces any interest the state has in protecting attorney work product."

Envision Ogden raised more than $80,000 in donations, including from city and state organizations, on behalf of promoting the city to tourists and entrepreneurs, according to the decision. However, Schroeder claims that at least $26,884 of those donations were shuttled instead through the Friends of Northern Utah Real Estate entity to the campaigns of Godfrey and a pair of Ogden City Council candidates.

Schroeder's scientific curiosity kicked in after Godfrey's contentious re-election for a third term. He began looking through campaign donations, intrigued by the contributions from Friends of Northern Utah Real Estate.

"After the election took place, some of us maybe paid more attention than others to some of the details, and one of the details was this organization Envision Ogden, which we knew had made some political contributions," Schroeder said. "It was almost an accident that, a year and a half later in early 2009, I spent a little time looking around on the Web to see if I could find out more about this organization, and I hit the jackpot."

Schroeder found some late Internal Revenue Service filings that drew a clear line from Envision Ogden to Friends of Northern Utah Real Estate and back to the political candidates.

After that, Envision Ogden came under scrutiny of the Utah State Bureau of Investigation in April 2009, but the office abandoned its investigation two months later, the ruling states. The Utah Attorney General's Office ordered the investigation to resume, but another year yielded few results and the office reopened the case in November 2010.

When the attorney general's office ended its investigation in March 2011, Schroeder began requesting documents under the state's Government Records Access and Management Act, including arguing the case on his own behalf in 3rd District Court. Over time, he obtained everything but the organization's bank records, a Quicken financial summary prepared during the investigation and a Post-it Note that purportedly included directions from state prosecutors.

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The attorney general's office claimed the bank statements, acquired under subpoena as part of the investigation, were protected by the Utah Constitution, while the financial summary and handwritten note represented records prepared by a government entity in anticipation of litigation, the court's decision states.

While the district court decision emphasized the importance of the public's right to know what its elected officials are up to, it ultimately sided with the Attorney General's office.

Now, four years after the investigation closed and even longer since Schroeder's original request, the Utah Supreme Court has ordered the documents released to Schroeder and remanded the question of his legal fees to be settled in 3rd District Court.

"Because Envision Ogden no longer exists and the state closed its investigation four years ago, the interests favoring disclosure clearly outweigh the interests favoring nondisclosure," Durrant wrote in the opinion.

The findings in the financial records may not yield any new information and won't result in legal repercussions for any old campaign finance violations, but it will finally satisfy the professor's curiosity. After receiving and reviewing them, he will decide how best to make them accessible to the public.

"I think this case sends a message that public officials need to be accountable, and I'm just happy to have maybe driven that message home in a slightly different way than has been done before," Schroeder said.

Following Schroeder's grass-roots battle in the district court, First Amendment attorneys Jeff Hunt, David Reymann and LaShel Shaw took the case pro bono through appeals to the Utah Supreme Court.

Hunt on Wednesday called the court's decision a victory for public information.

"The opinion is a big win for open government and public accountability," he said. "The Supreme Court roundly rejected the arguments of the attorney general and held that the Utah Constitution does not create a free-standing right of privacy that trumps public access to records under GRAMA."

Schroeder said he hopes the precedent-setting records battle will lay the groundwork for others seeking information under GRAMA.

"You never know ahead of time how long it's going to take and how much effort it's going to take. I didn't set out long ago knowing that I would be taking a case to the Utah Supreme Court and that it would take so many years," Schroeder said. "But at each stage along the process, as I asked myself, 'Is it worth hanging on a little longer?' The answer was always, 'Yes.'"

Hunt agrees.

"The opinion sets an important precedent that will be helpful in future public records battles. It makes clear that government entities cannot rely on generalities to withhold records," he said. "Dan is passionate and persistent. He deserves credit for taking this battle on and seeing it through."

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