Sen. Delph’s SB 517 proposes to make research tools used by state educational institutions available to legislators and staff of the legislative services agency. The tools are only to be used by the general assembly and LSA for official business of the General Assembly, and the educational institution can deny access where doing so would violate the terms of a grant or other agreement.
The official business of the General Assembly caveat is important. More than once during my tenure at LSA, I felt like a research request was related to the legislator’s private job — attorney-legislators in particular. I couldn’t say for sure though, since as an employee of the General Assembly I just said, “yes, sir” and did the research and didn’t ask questions about how the legislator intended to use the information.
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