EDITORIAL: Nevada Supreme Court strikes a blow for government accountability

State and local officials throughout Nevada have come up with some novel arguments over the years to justify keeping the public’s business from the public. Take the folks up in Lyon County.

Back in 2013, the Lyon County commissioners approved a zoning change for an industrial development. A local community group sued and filed a public records request seeking government communications involving the land-use decision. County officials turned over some information, but withheld emails relevant to the zoning matter that had been sent from commissioners’ personal accounts or cellphones, arguing they were not subject to the state open records law.

Fortunately for state taxpayers, the Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously rejected Lyon County’s reasoning.

“Lyon County concedes that its commissioners conducted county business, performing their duties as public servants, through their private phones and email addresses,” the 11-page opinion notes. “It is further clear that the commissioners themselves are governmental entities, subject to the (open records law). … Communications made in the performance of the commissioners’ duties on behalf of the public fall within this definition of a public service.”

In addition, the justices noted that the Nevada public records law is intended to foster democratic principles by providing members of the public with access to public documents, “and this court will construe the Act’s provisions liberally to achieve this purpose.”

The court sent the Lyon County case back to a lower court for reconsideration.

The court’s explicit recognition that the state public records law is intended to serve “important democratic principles” and must be construed liberally is good news for proponents of open government. That acknowledgment has ramifications for another pending records dispute — argued before the justices last month — involving the public’s right to access information about taxpayer pension payments to retired public employees.

The Lyon County ruling is a win for government transparency and accountability and will make it more difficult for defenders of government secrecy and obfuscation. If Nevada politicians could evade public records statutes by simply conducting all their business on their own devices, such laws would be effectively relegated to the trash bin.