When public records are on a government official’s personal device, it’s a problem. It’s a problem of access. It’s a problem of appearance. It’s a problem Oregonians and the officials don’t need.

Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Ore., was caught in the middle of such a public records thicket.

Before she became a member of Congress, she was Oregon’s labor commissioner. It’s an elected position and that person is in charge of the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries.

While she was commissioner, any records of government business — even if they were text messages to a personal cellphone — are public records.

The Bureau of Labor and Industries requested Hoyle turn over her text messages with state business in the early months of 2023 shortly before she left office as commissioner and then again shortly after she left.

The bureau believed she did state business on her personal phone. And, indeed, Willamette Week’s reporting showed she did. The most intriguing was perhaps work on a $550,000 grant for a nonprofit that was one of her top campaign donors.

That donor was CEO Rosa Cazares. It was related to the same cannabis company whose relationship with former Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan led to Fagan’s resignation and a criminal investigation by the federal government.

Hoyle maintained she did not initially see the emails that the bureau sent her making the records request. Fair enough. When she did respond, instead of just turning over her phones so the bureau could extract the records, she hired an attorney to go through the records and decide which ones to turn over to the bureau. The records were turned over last week, The Oregonian reported.

Did Hoyle’s attorney get them all? That is a key question. And we don’t know the answer.

We do know that when we have made public records requests for text messages from public officials there have sometimes been texts missing. We know because we found the text exchanges in records of other public officials. Of course, it may have just been an oversight. But when there is possible wrongdoing involved, is the public supposed to trust public officials to turn over incriminating information?

Government officials should not use personal devices or personal accounts when doing government business. Unless that becomes mandatory, this problem is stuck on repeat.