Scott Horn, co-director of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. Photo provided.
The 2024 James Madison Award recipient for service to the First Amendment is Scott Horn, co-director of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition (KOGC). The University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media and its Scripps Howard First Amendment Center, housed in the College of Communication and Information, present the award annually.
Horn has demonstrated an unrelenting commitment to public awareness and understanding of the Kentucky open records and open meetings laws by developing and curating the Sunshine Law Library on the KOGC website. Horn built the weekly updated library, which is “the largest freely accessible collection of Kentucky Attorney General opinions and decisions (1977-present), along with primary resources on par with, if not superior to, cost-prohibitive commercial legal research platforms,” said Amye Bensenhaver, co-founder and co-director of the KOGC and former assistant attorney general.
The Sunshine Law Library gives the public unrestricted, no-cost access to review decades of authority governing Kentucky’s open records and meetings laws, allowing citizens, from their own computers, to educate themselves about their rights and independently assess whether those rights have been violated.
“Horn expended substantial time and energy in constructing both the coalition website and the law library — all on his own initiative and with no expectation of remuneration — to empower the public,” Bensenhaver said. “The Sunshine Law Library is a critical step in leveling the open government playing field.”
Horn is also at the center of ongoing open records litigation that arose when he filed an open records request with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources Commission for records of public officials’ discussions of public business on private devices. His request prompted an open records appeal from then Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who sought to deny access to those records.
“That case — now pending in the Supreme Court — will, in no uncertain terms, decide the future of the open records law in Kentucky,” Bensenhaver said.
Further demonstrating his commitment to open governance, Horn is completing a state-by-state analysis on how open records laws apply to public officials’ discussions of public business on private devices.
“Scott’s name does not appear in headlines or bylines, but his singular contributions to protect and expand the freedom to information demonstrates how he has championed open government in the Commonwealth,” Bensenhaver said.
Horn earned his Master of Library Science and bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and Spanish from UK. He works as a software engineer for the San Diego-based biotechnology company Illumina.
The James Madison Award is scheduled to be presented at the Scripps Howard State of the First Amendment Address, delivered by Michael Abate, preeminent First Amendment advocate, proponent of government transparency and litigator with Louisville law firm Kaplan, Johnson, Abate & Bird. The award presentation will be at 5:30 p.m., Sept. 26, in the Grand Courtroom of the UK Rosenberg College of Law. The full event will be 5-7 p.m. and is free and open to the public. This year’s address will focus on free speech, free exercise and the establishment clause. Details of the event are posted at https://ci.uky.edu/jam/state-first-amendment-address.
The James Madison Award is presented annually by the School of Journalism and Media in the College of Communication and Information to honor those who have made outstanding contributions to First Amendment rights. The award was created in 2006 and honors the nation’s fourth president, whose extraordinary efforts led to the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Awardees must have significant ties to Kentucky, and their efforts must have resulted in the preservation or expansion of freedom of the press and/or freedom of speech. The James Madison Award recognizes a long-term commitment to these ideals.