A former Republican state lawmaker has filed a lawsuit seeking to force the University of Missouri to release more emails from associate law professor Josh Hawley, who is facing a tough GOP primary in the campaign for attorney general.
Former Republican Rep. Kevin Elmer filed the lawsuit late Wednesday in Boone County Circuit Court, alleging Hawley, the university system and the law school dean violated Missouri's Sunshine Law.
In the lawsuit Elmer, who is backing state Sen. Kurt Schaefer in the Aug. 2 primary, said he filed his initial request for documents last May, seeking to see whether officials at the university were improperly helping Hawley's campaign. Elmer also wants to review whether Hawley, who is on leave, used university computers to conduct campaign business and was paid by the school while campaigning.
Elmer said he still hasn't received all of Hawley's emails and other documents from his computer over a two-year period. The suit also criticizes the fees charged for the records: Elmer paid close to $5,000 for documents.
"Getting access to public records should not be this difficult," Elmer's attorney Jane Dueker said Thursday. She said Elmer is not involved in Schaefer's campaign.
The attorney general's office is in part responsible for enforcing the state's open records laws.
Hawley's spokesman Scott Paradise released a statement Thursday calling the lawsuit "frivolous" and alleging it's aimed to distract voters from Schaefer's "serious legal and ethical problems."
University of Missouri System spokesman John Fougere said the university is "responding with transparency and in a timely and lawful manner." He added the university recently received a high volume of records requests in the wake of protests on the Columbia campus last year over what some students saw as administrators' indifference to racial issues.
"For the Elmer request alone, the UM System is reviewing over 10,000 emails and more than 70,000 pages of documents, for a request that was but one in a year when the University received a record number of 714 Sunshine requests," Fougere said. "The University is on pace to set another record for requests in 2016, and will continue to follow the law and respond as quickly as possible to all records requests."
Fougere later said the university is considering hiring additional staff to handle the increase in Sunshine Law requests.
The lawsuit also claims Hawley and the law school dean conspired to keep records from the public and it was unlawful for Hawley to have filtered out what he considered personal emails before handing over documents to the university.
Elmer wants the rest of Hawley's emails and documents, compensation for the roughly $5,000 spent on documents and reimbursement for attorney fees.