Last week we sampled the spam Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s office released in response to a Minnesota Independent request. Pawlenty’s staff says he sends no e-mail and says under law they can make public only one of every seven of his incoming e-mails. That claim may be in keeping with Pawlenty’s one-word description of vice-presidential duties — “Discretion” — but can it be right? Two experts say yes — sort of.

MnIndy asked for the governor’s incoming and outgoing e-mail messages during a four-day period in late July, inspired by a Florida blogger who asked and received four days’ worth from her governor, Charlie Crist, whose name has occasionally appeared alongside Pawlenty’s on veepstakes lists. Our request, made under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (MGDPA), also came on the heels of a Star Tribune report that Pawlenty considered his e-mails private.

What we got was considerably less than open access but a bit more than nothing. Of more than 700 e-mails Pawlenty received, his office released only 100-some, almost all of which were spam. An invitation to lunch with a Polish diplomat while in Washington, D.C., and another invite to an in-state hockey event were as personally directed as the governor’s e-mails got in the batch his staff deemed suitable for Minnesotans to see.

Is that disappointing data-dump in keeping with Minnesota’s data laws? Two local communications law experts tell MnIndy that Pawlenty is at least technically following the MGDPA.

According to Minneapolis communications attorney Mark Anfinson, “Section 13.601, subdivision 2 of the Data Practices Act states that correspondence between individuals and elected officials is private but may be made public by either the sender or the recipient. The governor’s office appears to be relying on this provision.”

Indeed, that’s the section of state data law that Pawlenty’s director of operations, Paula Brown, cited when she told MnIndy that the only e-mails he’ll make public are either “correspondence from state or local government officials [or] correspondence that does not identify a specific individual as sender or recipient.”

He won’t release any e-mails he sent, she said, because he doesn’t send any: “Governor Pawlenty does not use e-mail as a communications vehicle. Our office does, however, maintain an e-mail address titled tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us [as listed on the governor's Web site] … There is no other state e-mail address for the governor.”

Another public data expert, Don Gemberling, expressed some skepticism at the disavowal of e-mail use. “It just doesn’t fit with how things are done these days,” said Gemberling, who for many years headed the state’s Information Policy Analysis Division (IPAD).

Still, noting that Pawlenty has been reported previously as claiming not to use e-mail, Gemberling allows that “at least he’s being consistent.”

Gemberling observes that the staff statement seems to preclude a Karl Rovian out — the use of a private, Republican Party or personal e-mail address to get around public data requirements.

According to Anfinson, Pawlenty was also within his rights under the MGDPA in denying another MnIndy data request to see the calendar he uses to conduct his daily business. “They are correct about access to the governor’s calendar. Advisory opinions have held that such calendars, even of high-ranking officials [are not public data],” Anfinson advised.

But even though these responses to public data requests appear to meet the letter of the law, Gemberling finds fault with Pawlenty’s approach. The calendar and e-mail responses, Gemberling says, show “a real consistent attitude — ‘We don’t want the public to know what we’re doing.’”