House Speaker Byrd's aide purged hundreds of messages

[Rebellious Republican]

TALLAHASSEE - House Speaker Johnnie Byrd's top aide deleted hundreds of e-mails in the last two days of the legislative session, a practice questioned by a leading open records advocate and the next speaker of the House.

Chief of staff P.K. Jameson, a lawyer and the most powerful staff member in the House, said she routinely deletes e-mails, sometimes from her computer at home, because she does not consider them public record.

"I don't keep my e-mails ever because I get such a large volume of them every day during the session," Jameson said Wednesday. "The kind of stuff that was in there was a lot of "please hear this bill' kind of stuff, and after session, those are of no value."

The deletions became known when the St. Petersburg Times requested all e-mails received by Jameson and Byrd on the session's final two days, April 29 and 30, when the House did most of its most important work, passing or defeating dozens of major bills.<snip
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/13/State/Deletion_of_e_mails_r.shtml