Turn Over the Trip Itineraries, Mr. Governor

The Democratic partisans among us can argue until they’re blue in the face that it’s all about scoring political points in a gubernatorial election year, but it doesn’t matter one iota.

We’re talking about efforts by the Republican Party of Virginia and chairman Pat Mullins to obtain the travel records of Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, who moonlights as Virginia’s governor. Mullins had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request with the governor’s office for Kaine’s travel and internal scheduling records, only to be rebuffed late Friday afternoon.

We’ll concede right off the bat that Virginia Republicans are indeed trying to score a point or two at Democrat Kaine’s expense, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that the information should be in the public domain.

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(The Associated Press has joined the quest for the records, filing an FOIA request of its own Friday, seeking the governor’s travel records from January through June.)

Eight years ago, when Republican Jim Gilmore juggled the jobs of governor and Republican National Committee chairman, Virginia Democrats rubbed their hands in glee as they launched their own version of “Where’s Waldo?”, except theirs was “Where’s Gilmore?” And for the record, the governor’s office then, too, refused requests for Gilmore’s travel records.

And the “reason” provided by Kaine’s political staff then (and Gilmore’s eight years ago): Such records are regarded as “working papers” and therefore are exempt under FOIA.

Please.

Governors since the days of Doug Wilder have relied on a generous definition of “working papers,” backed up by a state Supreme Court decision. One gubernatorial staffer after another down through the years has trotted out the same, tired excuses about the “working papers” exemption, fears about security and privacy concerns for the commonwealth’s chief executive and various legal precedents.

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government (Web site: http://www.opengovva.org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that monitors government’s compliance with sunshine laws. Executive Director Megan Rhyne, speaking with The Associated Press was adamant that such records should be accessible to the general public.

“With Governor Kaine, it’s also important because if he does pledge to keep the expenses from DNC separate,” she said, “there has to be a way for people to verify for themselves whether he’s actually doing that.”

Kaine’s honesty and integrity are not an issue; he pledges to keep any DNC expense off the state’s books, and we trust his word.

But the principle of open government, of government business conducted in the light of day for all to observe is what is at issue here. Kaine, of all people, should recognize that fact and turn over the documents in question.

The bottomline is that the public has every right to know where the governor is traveling, why, with whom and on whose tab. And no widely drawn definition of “working papers” or “executive privilege” should top that right.