Another DEI Disaster: Indiana's Transparency Chief Replaced

Brittney Long, appointed Indiana Public Access Counselor effective Oct. 5, 2026. Official headshot courtesy of Office of Governor Mike Braun.

Two hundred forty-eight days. That is how long, on average, it took Indiana's Public Access Counselor under Jennifer Ruby to issue an advisory opinion — more than eight times the 30-day deadline written into state law.

Gov. Mike Braun announced Friday that Brittney Long, most recently deputy general counsel at the Department of Natural Resources, will take the job Monday.

State Personnel Department spokesman Kirollos Barsoum confirmed Ruby resigned; her last day worked was Thursday. Braun's release named Long and praised her credentials. It said nothing about why Ruby left.

Hopefully, he will rid Indiana of these DEI deptartment heads who fail, including Loretta Rush.

What the opinion clock actually looked like

IndyStar's Cate Charron reported the 248-day average from published advisory opinions and found Ruby twice as likely to rule for government agencies as her predecessor, Luke Britt. After that reporting and a letter from news outlets threatening litigation over delays, Braun loaned two full-time staffers from his own office to chip at the backlog. Capital Chronicle's Leslie Bonilla Muñiz noted the office runs on three employees and a $339,000 annual budget; Governor's office Deputy General Counsel Trent Bennett draws nearly a third of the salary spend and did not handle access work until that August diversion.

The weekly productivity numbers on the PAC site show movement. In August, only one opinion had gone out on 2026 complaints. As of Oct. 2, IndyStar counted 17. The Office of Administrative Law Proceedings is also sending a lawyer starting Tuesday on a temporary fill-in, Capital Chronicle reported.

A new nameplate on a governor-controlled desk

Long brings more than a decade of legal work: Bartholomew County Circuit Court magistrate from 2022 into early 2026, then DNR deputy general counsel, and earlier years at Indianapolis firm Voyles Lukemeyer Baldwin Webb & Helmond. Braun's statement called her "an excellent fit" who will "bring added transparency and accountability to our state."

That accountability pitch lands against a structural change conservatives should not forget. The General Assembly stripped the counselor's independence and let the governor fire the PAC without cause — the same architecture under which Braun appointed Ruby in March 2025 and is now swapping her out. The office is still the state's primary referee on the Access to Public Records Act and the Open Door Law. Its opinions are advisory, not binding. But for citizens, county boards, and reporters who wait months for a reading of the statute, the clock itself became the story.

Long inherits both the statute's 30-day expectation and a desk that spent more than a year running on a different calendar. Monday is her first day. The 30-day clock does not reset for the public just because the nameplate changes.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.