A Republican activist is suing House Speaker and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gaye Symington, saying she improperly denied his public-records requests.
Curtis Hier of Fair Haven says he asked Symington for copies of e-mails between her and the state’s major teachers’ union related to the union’s call for repeal of a school-funding reform law.
Hier says he was told that legislative e-mails are destroyed after 90 days. He says there’s no provision to allow such a practice in Vermont’s public records law.
Legislative officials maintain the 90-day delete system was set up in 2000, when a high volume of e-mails around the country relating to Vermont’s civil union bill crashed the Statehouse computers.