The Republican Governors' Associationis joining the band of First Amendment backers asking Democratic guv-hopeful Jerry Brown to release the collection of records from his previous two terms at the job.
Anyone seeking access to Brown's papers, which are housed at the University of Southern California, needs to get written permission from Brown himself (a rule he signed into law as governor more than three decades ago). Under those current laws, the papers will be subject to full, unrestricted public access in 2033 -- 50 years after Brown left the governor's office -- or upon his death.
So the RGA has launched a petition -- www.WhatsBrownDone.com -- asking Brown to waive restrictions on viewing those 2,000 or so boxes of documents from his gubernatorial terms (their site, however, inaccurately identifies the year the written permission rule is lifted as 2038).
"We want a more complete answer to the question, 'What has Jerry Brown done to you?' How can he possibly run for governor while hiding the records from his previous two terms from the voters?" RGA spokesman Tim Murtaugh said.
The RGA has, of course, its own answer to the question of what Brown did in office. That answer (in a nutshell: raise taxes) is splashed all over the site and in an accompanying YouTube spot.
As California Watch reported earlier this week, at least six people have been approved to view the records, but even that access is complicated by some archival clean-up efforts reportedly being undertaken at USC.
When asked whether anyone from the RGA has requested access to the records, Murtaugh said "that's not the point."
"We don't understand why that should be a hurdle existing in the first place," he said.
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