Court Says State Employee Birth Dates Are Public Record

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Government transparency and labor legislation haven’t just been recent front-burner issues at the Legislature. They’ve often blown into pure political fire, as interest groups struggle to shift the scales of power.

On Thursday, the Washington Supreme Court ruled on a case where state sunshine law and labor interests crash right into each other.

The decision — that the birth dates of state employees are open records — already has some Democrats talking about reviving legislation to shield those workers’ birth dates from disclosure.

The narrow 5-4 court ruling represents a win for transparency advocates and the state’s 1972 voter-approved Public Records Act. The majority opinion penned by Justice Debra Stephens found that neither that law nor the state constitution exempts those employee birth dates from disclosure.

The case stems from a long-running fight between state employee unions -- a major donor to Democrats -- and a conservative group that is trying to reduce public-sector union membership. Employee birth dates in recent years have been a key piece of data in that fight.

The conservative Freedom Foundation has used public-records requests to obtain personal information about union members. The organization then uses that information to  contact members and tell them they’re not obligated to pay union dues.

Several unions in 2016 filed motions to block disclosure of those records to the Freedom Foundation, prompting the case.

The Seattle Times, along with the Washington Coalition for Open Government and other groups, filed a brief in support of the Freedom Foundation.

Toby Nixon of the Coalition for Open Government celebrated the ruling, calling it in a statement “the right decision.”



Nixon wrote that journalists need birth dates to match different sets of records when investigating the professional, educational and criminal backgrounds of public employees.

“News media have made use of this in the past, for example, to detect when coaches who prey on students have been allowed to resign and then hired by other districts,” Nixon said.

He added: “We should not sacrifice government transparency so that public sector labor unions can make it more difficult for public employees to be contacted to inform them of their constitutional right.”

The respondents — which included the Washington Public Employees Association (WPEA) — argued among other things that their members have a right to privacy under state law and the state constitution.

The WPEA represents more than 4,000 workers at a range of public institutions, including the Department of Revenue, the Department of Natural Resources, the Liquor and Cannabis Board, the State School for the Blind, the Washington State Patrol and 15 community colleges.

In a statement, WPEA President Kent Stanford said his organization was “deeply disappointed” in the decision. Union employees, Stanford said, should have privacy protections to shield them from harassment, identity theft, data breaches -- and the Freedom Foundation.

“We respect and value governmental transparency, but this is a blatant attempt by secretly-funded, politically-motivated, anti-public service special interests to intimidate and destroy the privacy of public employees in order to fuel their extreme anti-worker ideology,” Stanford said in prepared remarks.

In a statement, Brian Minnich, executive vice president of the Freedom Foundation, called the ruling a “great victory” for his organization and one that “upholds Washington’s strong tradition of open government.”