San Bernardino County sued over records request

We have to Keep public Employee Contact info out of the wrong hands. LITIGATING FREEDOM

Freedom Foundation Sues San Bernardino County Over Information Request Denial

Under California’s Public Records Act, public agencies have an obligation to honor every document request unless there is a specific exemption in state law for the information being sought. And the burden of proof is on the agency to justify any refusal to comply.

But a lawsuit filed on Monday accuses San Bernardino County of systematically refusing to hand over contact information about public employees because it knows the group making the request is on a mission to inform the workers about a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that recognizes their right to opt out of union membership, dues and fees.

“Public records laws exist to ensure government agencies are transparent and accountable,” said Shella Sadovnik, an attorney with the Freedom Foundation, which has been trying to obtain the documents since March 12. “They were not created to protect the monopoly labor unions have traditionally enjoyed in the public workplace.”

The Freedom Foundation, with offices in California, Oregon, Washington, Ohio and Pennsylvania, has a vigorous outreach program whose goal is to educate government employees about Janus v. AFSCME, a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming that compulsory support of a labor union — whether through member dues or so-called “agency fees” charged to nonmembers — is a violation of the First Amendment.

But in order to inform the workers, the Freedom Foundation must first know who they are and how to reach them.

Basic contact information — such as the worker’s full name, birthdate, work email, etc. — has always been public, since the employees are paid by state taxes. In fact, it was readily provided to the unions, who use it for organizing purposes.

But in the wake of Janus, the unions stand to lose billions in dues revenues if public employees suddenly realize membership and dues are now voluntary. Consequently, they’re exerting considerable pressure on public agencies to deny workers’ contact information to organizations like the Freedom Foundation, which hope to spread a message that unions don’t want their members to hear.

By BOB WICKERS, California Director

In the San Bernardino lawsuit, county personnel officials responded to the Freedom Foundation information request by insisting they do not maintain records of which employees are represented by a union — even though the state deducts dues from the workers’ paychecks and forwards the money to their respective union.

Further, the county asserts: n the records fall under a public-interest exemption; n the disclosure of contact details would constitute an unwarranted invasion of the workers’ personal privacy; and, n it could expose workers to safety concerns.

“All of their objections are bogus,” Sadovnik said.

“First, the burden is on the public agency to show the public’s need for nondisclosure,” she explained. “The county has provided no such reason. Further, the Freedom Foundation is not seeking personnel, medical or private employee files, so the privacy concerns are inapplicable in this case. Nor are there any safety issues when you’re providing already-public information.”

The lawsuit, filed in San Bernardino Superior Court, lists San Bernardino County as the lone defendant and seeks release of the requested documents plus a declaration from the county admitting it erred in withholding them.

A similar lawsuit was filed May 12 by the Freedom Foundation in Sacramento Superior Court against CalHR, and the state of California to obtain publicly disclosable information — under the California Public Records Act.

“Public records laws assume everything a government does is open to scrutiny unless there’s a good reason it shouldn’t be,” Sadovnik said. “Keeping government employees in the dark about their rights so their union can continue to plunder their paychecks isn’t a good reason.”

What They What They &

What she said: “The Freedom Foundation is the deep state. When they accuse, it means that’s what they’re doing.”

What she meant: “In fact, this statement was made in reference to a Freedom SALLY KOCH Foundation Portland, Ore, study revealing Facebook post, that the state of June 30, 2020 Washington was overstating the number of COVID-19 deaths by up to 13 percent. The report was criticized by unions and their friends on the left, but the state’s Department of Health later conceded it was doing exactly what the Freedom Foundation said, and quietly changed its reporting methodology.”

n n n

What she said: “Get rid of the Freedom Foundation. They’re trying to break unions. They’re evil.”

What she meant: “Get rid of by what means? This is either a call to use the instrument of government SHERRIE HASS to legislate Spokane, Wash. the unions’ Facebook post, political June 31, 2020 opponents out of existence or it’s a naked threat of violence. Either way, it makes a liar out of me when I say the Freedom Foundation is evil.”

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What she said: “Has anyone put faces and names to members of the Freedom Foundation?”

What she meant: “For starters, there’s the staff page on the Freedom Foundation’s NORMA website, which BRENNFLECK proudly lists the Vancouver, Wash. name and job Facebook post title of every June 28, 2020 Freedom Foundation employee, along with a short bio and a photo. By contrast, the union-backed Northwest Accountability Project, on whose Facebook page I posted my comments, lists only one name. The question is, why would anyone need to know what Freedom Foundation members looked like unless they were planning retaliation?”

Dems face credibility gap over COVID rules

By VALERIE RICHARDSON Reprinted from the WASHINGTON TIMES

July 8, 2020

For three weeks, Seattle officials allowed hundreds of protesters to take over a six-block area of Capitol Hill that included Cal Anderson Park, but Shella Sadovnik still isn’t allowed to take her child to the local playground.

“Apparently, my toddler is much more dangerous (than protesters),” said Ms. Sadovnik, a Seattle-based lawyer for the Freedom Foundation. “I guess all the law-abiding people have to be subject to all these restrictions, but if you’re protesting and looting and rioting, that’s OK. You don’t spread coronavirus.”

The mass protests after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police have largely faded, but nobody’s forgotten how scores of mostly liberal governors and local officials cheered and even marched alongside demonstrators, often in defiance of social-distancing rules designed to slow the spread of the pandemic.

The result has been simmering public skepticism, particularly on the right, over the necessity of the lockdowns and other restrictions, or what Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, an associate professor at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine, called the “the coronavirus credibility gap.”

“(P)olitical leaders and health officials have sown distrust by politicizing the pandemic response,” Dr. Ladapo said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Political leaders and health officials have often invoked ‘science’ to justify decisions manifestly guided by their personal preferences. That costs them credibility.”

Phil Kerpen, president of the free-market advocacy group American Commitment, pointed to the rapid-fire shift in focus by politicians and public health authorities from COVID-19 to the George Floyd pro

tests and then back to COVID-19.

“The same supposed so-called experts who tried every scare tactic in the world to say that if you take a step outside, you’re going to kill everybody’s grandparents, and all of these draconian restrictions are necessary — they then went and literally participated in protest events with massive, massive crowds of thousands of people,” Mr. Kerpen said.

Governors of states with some of the tightest restrictions, including Democrats Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, joined the protests in early June, wearing masks but not always social distancing, as shown in photos.

“With little social distancing, Whitmer marches with protesters,” said a June 4 headline in the Detroit News.

The alleged double-standard has emerged as an issue in litigation. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) brought up Nevada Gov. Steve’s Sisolak’s participation in a June 19 Black Lives Matter protest in a challenge to the Democrat’s reopening order on churches.

Under the order, churches cannot hold services with more than 50 attendees even though restaurants, casinos and theme parks have been allowed to reopen at 50% capacity, which the ADF described as a disparate treatment.

“What’s funny about all this is that we have a First Amendment right under the free-exercise clause to practice our religion in churches,” said ADF senior counsel John Bursch. “The Constitution does not protect your right to gamble at a casino, to eat at a restaurant, to frolic at a theme park, and yet those are the activities that are being given preferential treatment under the governor’s order.”

In Washington, Ms. Sadovnik said her organization, the Freedom Foundation, has been working overtime to represent businesses and individuals challenging the state’s restrictions.

The foundation filed a lawsuit against Governor’s no-mask, no-sevice order takes effect in Washington By IAN DAVIS-LEONARD Last week, the lic policy organization based in Olympia, filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven Washingtonians seeking an injunc tion to the mask requirement as “relief for the violation of civil rights and liberties,” the complaint said. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s “no mask, no service” order on Tuesday, the same day the mandate went into effect, arguing that the state is “essentially compelling (residents) to support junk science in violation of their freedom of conscience.” The lawsuit cited a May 21 study in the New England Journal of Medicine that said wearing cloth masks outside a health-care facility “offers little, if any, protection from infection,” while the Democratic governor argued that the mandate would protect public health. “This is something that can save lives,” Mr. Inslee said. “There is nothing in the constitution that says people should die of a virus. It’s just not there. And anybody can file a lawsuit, but so far courts have upheld.”

Aaron Withe, national director of the Freedom Foundation, said the order was particularly galling given Mr. Inslee’s treatment of protesters and rioters.

“The face-covering directive is the definition of government overreach,” said Mr. Withe. “If people choose to wear a mask,