COLUMBUS, Ohio (Legal Newsline) - Ohio Attorney General David Yost must turn over records and sit for a deposition about his office’s interaction with the Republican Attorneys General Association and a related foundation, an appeals court ruled, rejecting arguments the public records request sought information about independent outside groups.
The Center for Media and Democracy, a Wisconsin nonprofit, filed a public records request in March 2020, seeking all records in the AG’s office pertaining to RAGA and the Rule of Law Defense Fund, which helps fund RAGA. The group said it was looking for information about how Yost’s office coordinated efforts with other Republican AGs on policies including liability protection for business during the Covid epidemic. The AG’s office quickly responded, saying the documents were exempt from disclosure because they weren’t official state records.
The center sued in December 2020, arguing Yost had violated his duty of disclosure. In its lawsuit, CMD described RAGA and RLDF as “extremely influential pressure groups whose shared mission is to advance the interests of their corporate patrons." RAGA’s funders include a political organization backed by conservative billionaire Leonard Leo, according to CMD and other public disclosure groups.
“RAGA actively coordinates policies and litigation for things AGs and their staff participate in,” said Arn Pearson, CMD’s executive director and counsel. “What we want the court to rule is these are public records.”
The fight is similar to disputes between Democratic AGs and groups seeking information about how they have coordinated efforts on climate litigation. Last April, a judge ruled that former Virginia AG Mark Herring improperly withheld documents about private attorneys general funded by billionaire Mike Bloomberg from the American Enterprise Institute. Last October, however, the Minnesota Supreme Court denied a request for similar documents from Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, saying they were shielded by the “common-interest doctrine” protecting communications over litigation strategy.
Yost moved to dismiss the case in January 2021, saying his involvement with RAGA had nothing to do with the function of the AG’s office and CMD was seeking records “that do not exist.” A magistrate decided Yost was arguing inconsistent positions, however: First, that the records didn’t exist, and then that they were exempt from production.
The magistrate ordered Yost’s office to produce a number of documents for in camera review in the judge’s chambers as well as requiring Yost to sit for a deposition about how the search for those documents was conducted and his legal reasoning for declaring some exempt from disclosure. The magistrate’s order included records about communications between AG’s office employees and members of RAGA and RLDF although the magistrate rejected as overbroad a request for any communications involving “official positions” later taken by the AG’s office.
Yost moved to set aside the magistrate’s order but a majority on the Tenth Appellate District Court upheld it. The appeals court rejected Yost’s objection to using a public records request to inquire into relations between his office and other Republican AGs, saying it is his “relationship with the organizations in question that he has consistently pointed to as the basis for asserting that the documents they seek are not public records.”
“What I really think you have here is an active coverup of the AG’s dealings with RAGA,” Pearson said. “We’ve wasted months and years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money trying to get these documents.”
In 2017, CMD famously obtained thousands of pages of documents from former Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt over his interactions with the oil and gas industry. The center has been less successful in a similar campaign against Utah AG Sean Reyes.
Judge William Klatt dissented, saying there was no need to depose Yost about whether responsive records exist since there was no evidence he had firsthand knowledge about how his staff conducted the search for those records or determined whether they were public documents.
“The deposition of a high-ranking governmental official like a governor or attorney general is a major event and significantly intrudes upon government business,” he wrote. “The time needed for deposition preparation, document review, consultation with counsel, and transcript review is substantial, and such a deposition would be a major distraction from official duties.”
RLDF’s most recent tax filing, from 2018, showed it had $2.5 million in revenue and provided about $775,000 in salary reimbursements and political contributions to RAGA.