No Answer Provided to Public Record Request

Almost two full business weeks later and still no response to an open record request directed at the Governor’s office. The request submitted was narrowed to communications between the Governor’s office and the Tax Commissioner’s office regarding Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger’s arrest for DUI. The time frame was for three weeks. One would think it is a simple request, yet nothing has been returned.

The record request was sent after it was revealed Governor Burgum knew about Rauschenberger’s arrest before it was made public. It took three weeks for the public to discover one of their servants was arrested. The news broke at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon in an attempt to place it in a “news dump.” That is unacceptable.

I wanted to know if the Governor’s office assisted in covering up this news for three weeks. Why should we care? IF the Governor’s office actively covered up the news of Rauschenberger’s arrest, it would go against their office’s push to end the stigma of addiction. IF they worked with Rauschenberger to keep it quiet, they weren’t exactly practicing what they were telling others to do. Why? Because of politics. I told you earlier that politics and public information would be my focus in this situation.

Just as I’ve said before, I truly wish Ryan the best. I understand some people’s desire to get this story out of the public sphere. However, since he is a public official in charge of overseeing very important personal information, we deserve answers when questions are asked.

Let me be clear, this is speculation on my part. Like I said, I haven’t received a response. There might be nothing. If that’s the case, I’ll be sure to make it known. Yet, if there was no communication between the Governor’s office and Tax Commissioner’s office about Rauschenberger’s arrest, then it should have been even easier to have already sent back correspondence. I’ll let you know when I finally hear back.