ALEC - AGs Request (California)

Dear Mr. Richardson,

We are in receipt of your below email submitted and received on May 13, 2015 by the California Department of Justice/Attorney General's Office (DOJ). You have requested records under the California Sunshine Amendment (Cal. Const. Art. 1, § 3(b)). We will treat your request as if it were made under the California Public Records Act, found in California Government Code Section 6250 et seq.

Specifically, your request is stated as follows:

- 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.

Pursuant to Government Code section 6253.1, we are seeking clarification of your request. As currently cast, your request is too broad and unspecific in that you do not identify a time period or subject matter.

If you can provide clarification or have additional information in narrowing the scope of our search, please let us know.

Thank you,

Alyssa Nguyen

Public Records Coordinator

Public Records Telephone: 916.445.4069

Dear Mr. Richardson,

We are in receipt of your below email submitted and received on May 28, 2015 by the California Department of Justice/Attorney General's Office (DOJ).

You have clarified your original Public Records Act request of May 13, 2015 as follows:

- Limit the time period to 2010 to the present.
- Limit 'communications with ALEC representatives' to mean electronic communications to/from/cc/bcc email addresses ending in the domain '@alec.org'.
- Limit the keyword search to only the term 'American Legislative Exchange Council' and to electronic communications passing through the email address of the Attorney General and his/her assistants.

We have conducted a search of DOJ’s legal indexes, knowledgeable people, and logical places and have been unable to locate any responsive records.

Sincerely,

Alyssa Nguyen

Public Records Coordinator

Public Records Telephone: 916.445.4069

Dear Mr. Richardson,

We are in receipt of your follow-up email submitted and received on June 9, 2015 by the California Department of Justice/Attorney General's Office (DOJ).

You have stated:

“Thanks for the quick response. That seems very unlikely in light of the responses that I have received from other attorney generals. It seems that ALEC regularly files forms with state attorney generals in order to maintain its ability to accept charitable donations, so these at least should come up.

Would you mind outlining how the search was performed? Perhaps we can figure out a different way to search for these same records.”

Based on the additional information you have provided, we are forwarding your request to our department’s Charitable Trusts Section for handling.

Sincerely,

Alyssa Nguyen

Public Records Coordinator

Public Records Telephone: 916.445.4069

A cover letter granting the request and outlining any exempted materials, if any.

Attached please find our response to your public records act request.

Tania M. Ibanez
Senior Assistant Attorney General
California Attorney General's Office
Charitable Trusts Section
300 S. Spring Street, Suite 1702
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 897-0218

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