Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ and his chief of staff Jordan Harvey, along with the Office of the State Treasurer, have been hit with a lawsuit for failing to produce and possibly destroying public records related to a controversial anti-ESG law that was permanently blocked by a state district court judge in July.
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 17 in Oklahoma County District Court by FOIA Professional Services, an Alabama company that manages the requesting process for companies seeking access to information under the Freedom of Information Act.
The plaintiff alleges that the Office of the State Treasurer only partially complied with a public records request it made in July 2023 under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. At issue are three documents relating to financial institutions that use environmental, social and governance factors in selecting investments.
The plaintiff claims that Harvey sent the documents from her personal email account to her state email account, with at least one forwarded to the Oklahoma State Governor’s Office with a message saying, “these are from our friends in DC that came about 2 months ago to meet with Treasurer Russ and the Governor.”
FOIA Professional Services faulted the Office of the State Treasurer for failing to produce the additional documents, alleging that the documents were either illegally withheld or destroyed.
“On information and belief, the emails from the ‘friends in DC’ to defendant Harvey at her personal email account either have been illegally withheld by one or more defendants or have been illegally destroyed by defendant Harvey,” the plaintiff claims in the lawsuit.
“The Treasurer’s office works diligently with multiple organizations in an effort to provide thousands of documents on a regular basis," Harvey said in a statement. "It is deeply disappointing that an out-of-state company is using Oklahoma’s Open Records Act, a sunshine law designed to ensure transparency for the people of Oklahoma for the benefit of unknown out-of-state entities.”
The lawsuit notes that Harvey, who also serves as the deputy treasurer of administration in the Office of the State Treasurer, represents the state agency as a staff representative on the leadership team of the State Financial Officers Foundation, a lobbying group hostile to ESG investing.
Among other things, the plaintiff is looking to declare the defendants’ refusal and failure to provide the requested documents illegal. It is also seeking an order requiring defendants to provide all requested public records that have been withheld.
The complaint follows a lawsuit filed by a retired Oklahoma public employee to halt the enforcement of the contentious law known as the Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Elimination Act, which sought to ban public pension funds from doing business with firms said to discriminate against the oil and gas industry. Oklahoma District Court Judge Sheila Stinson issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the law on July 19. The attorney general’s office appealed Stinson’s ruling and has until Oct. 30 to file briefs with the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
