ALEC - AGs Request (Maryland)
It is a clone of this request.
| Submitted | May 13, 2015 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Alex Richardson
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to Maryland's Public Information Act ("PIA"), I hereby request the following records:
- All communications between members of this office and employees or representatives of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
- All communications containing the keywords "ALEC" or "American Legislative Exchange Council".
- Any files or documents attached to the above communications.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 30 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Alex Richardson
From: Office of the Attorney General - Maryland
A no responsive documents response.
From: Snyder, Adam
Mr. Richardson:
See the attached letter in response to your PIA request below. An original is coming by regular mail.
Adam D. Snyder
Office of Attorney General
200 St. Paul Place, 20th Floor
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
(410) 576-6327
(410) 576-7036 (fax)
From: Alex Richardson
Hello Mr. Snyder,
Thank you for getting back to me! Unfortunately, this result seems very unlikely in light of the responses that I have received from other attorney generals. It seems like ALEC regularly files forms with AG offices to maintain its right to solicit charitable donations in each state, and these at least should come up.
Would you mind outlining how the search was performed? Perhaps we can figure out something else. Sorry for the trouble, I know it's a bit of a pain.
Thanks,
Alex Richardson
From: Snyder, Adam
It’s not a problem, Mr. Richardson; if we’re going about this the wrong way, we need to fix that. That said, I don’t believe our Office handles the type of annual registrations that you describe. Instead, that seems to be what the Secretary of State does: http://www.sos.state.md.us/Charity/CharityHome.html.
Beyond charitable registrations, keep in mind that our response is on behalf of the Office of the Attorney General only; it’s possible that the different State agencies might have records or that individual legislators might as well. They have their own obligations under the PIA, and we do not presume to respond on their behalf.
As for how we conducted our search, we asked the different divisions of our office to ask their employees whether they have correspondence with ALEC and then performed a computerized search of our email system. That turned up nothing, which really doesn’t surprise me. If ALEC is going to be contacting people in Maryland, I would think it would be the legislators who craft the laws and not the Attorney General’s Office. But, as I said earlier, we want to get this right, so if you can provide greater detail about what specific types of records you are looking for, maybe that might help us locate the records, if there are any.
ads
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~WRD000
From: Alex Richardson
Hi Mr. Snyder,
Thanks for the details! I may have one more question for you on this matter, but I'd like to look into it on my end first. If you don't hear from me again, consider this matter closed.
Best,
Alex Richardson
From: Snyder, Adam
Will do.
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~WRD000
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