Members of the Missouri House of Representatives on Tuesday changed a rule to allow them to keep some personal information they receive from constituents confidential.
The change comes as a response to the Clean Missouri Amendment.
Among other things, Clean Missouri - which voters passed by a 2-to-1 majority in November - requires lawmakers to follow the same Sunshine Law that other people in government follow and give questioners access to most emails when asked.
The new amendment had unexpected results, said Dave Griffith, R-Jefferson City, who is serving his first week in the General Assembly.
"We want transparency. We want the public to know what we're doing," Griffith said. "We want the press to know what we're doing."
However, some information the legislators receive in emails from constituents should be considered confidential, Griffith said.
For members of the House, their biggest concerns come from receiving information from constituents, that the senders may want to keep confidential, said Dana Miller, the chief clerk of the House, and Trevor Fox, the House communications director.
Fox and Miller sat down with the Jefferson City News Tribune to discuss the challenges the new law creates.
"Anytime I talk to members about it, that's one of their big concerns. They do get a lot of sensitive information from their constituents," said Fox, whose office answers calls for the main phone line for the House. "People do - they call in and they share all sorts of things that you wouldn't expect them to."
Until passage of Clean Missouri, lawmakers had considered themselves exempt from having to disclose some correspondence they had received.
"It's an adjustment in the way the House has operated," Miller said.
Lawmakers now have to retain and provide certain records.
The House on Tuesday voted to allow representatives to make decisions concerning information from their constituents, said Rudy Veit, R-Wardsville. Veit, a member of the Rules Committee. The committee, which proposes rules for the chamber, said the new rule the House passed does not prevent people from making, or representatives from honoring, Sunshine Law requests.
The new House rule (127) states: Members may keep constituent case files, and records of the caucus of the majority or minority party of the House that contain caucus strategy, confidential. Constituent case files include any correspondence, written or electronic, between a member and a constituent, or between a member and any other party pertaining to a constituent's grievance, a question of eligibility for any benefit as it relates to a particular constituent, or any issue regarding a constituent's request for assistance.
"The House rules that changed were designed to try to protect personal information for constituents," Veit said. "We realize we are subject to the constitution just like anyone else is."
He said lawmakers are following a guiding principle in the state Constitution that was heard on the House floor.
The new rule, Veit said, was designed to protect constituents' personal information.
"We want people to be able to come in here and tell us what's going on, what's happening to them. We don't want their name to suddenly be out on the front page," Veit said.
Each of the representatives is now the custodian of their own records. And each is going to have their own public information policy.
"You have 163 representatives in the House with 163 sunshine policies and retention schedules now," Miller said, and added there are differences. "Because every member is designated a custodian, so it's going to vary from one member to the next as to what their particular policy is going to look like."
Much of the look of the policies is going to be influenced by their party's caucus.
"I want to underscore the importance of the caucuses in this - the majority and minority caucuses have set a tone. They've done some work with their members," Miller said. "There will be some difference. Not everybody is going to have the same position on how all of this works.
"It's absolutely appropriate for there to be a variance."
Miller, who came up through the House Clerk's Office, was selected to be the new House chief clerk in October and confirmed by the full House when it went into session last week, said record keeping by lawmakers will reflect what her office already does.
The House has what she calls three "buckets" of records - legislative work products (such as bills, committee records and other products), House administrative records (such as sunshine requests) and now the change in constitutional records that opens legislative records to the public.
Legislative products were her bread and butter back in the day.
"The world I came from as an assistant clerk, we kept everything and we archived everything," Miller said. "So, all bills, all committee records, all messages to the Senate, committee reports - all of that is on permanent archive at the State Archives."
As the director of communications in the House, Fox is at the front line for House administrative records, Miller said. He'll often get requests for things like members' expense accounts or for things such as intern survey results.
Not new "by any means," the Sunshine Law has been in effect in Missouri since 1973, Miller said.
"So, the difference we see now is we have this different language in the constitution that opens legislative records and makes them subject to the Sunshine Law," she said. "What I think has been an adjustment is that members' correspondence - those records have been considered closed. Now, they are considered to be open."
The law has some 23 exceptions, including welfare cases of identifiable individuals, records protected from disclosure by law, and others.
Lawmakers' constituents - who may not have other resources - oftentimes see their representative as the first public official who might be able to resolve a personal issue, Miller said.
"It could be anything from a family member is incarcerated and there are concerns about treatment in the correctional facility they're in. Or, someone has been hot-lined about some sort of situation with their child and they're looking for assistance from their state rep trying to navigate through the red tape with departments," Miller said. "Those are just two examples that we frequently will address.
"Now, with application of this Sunshine Law, it's not a clear exemption for this sort of correspondence. I think there is coverage under the law. But, there are some areas where I think there are some concerns about the clarity."
All legislators are going to err on the side of caution, Griffith said.
"We want to be able to protect our constituents. I'm working with a constituent right now - with a veteran right now," Griffith said. "If I were to release all his information, that would be a definite violation. (Clean Missouri is) not going to stop me from doing my job."