California’s public records bill has been scaled back again after backlash

from Kate WolffCalMatters

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deputy Blanca Pacheco again dropped his controversial proposal to amend California’s public records rules.

The Downey Democrat has alarmed First Amendment advocates in March when she introduced a measure that would make it more expensive for some people to obtain public records from government agencies, which she said was intended to reduce malicious or profit-motivated requests.

Faced with strong opposition, she scaled back the measure. Then, after leaving the meeting, she inserted high fees for records requests and added new ways counties can deny requestssuch as if they were filed through improper means or a court found that the applicant had “malicious intent.” After another shout they return.

In its current reduced state, Assembly Bill 1821 will extend the time an agency must respond to a request from 10 calendar days to 10 business days. The request can be extended by no more than 14 working days instead of 14 calendar days.

“Currently, deadlines are calculated in calendar days, while review work is done during business hours,” Pacheco said. She said she changed the bill in response to feedback she received.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took it up on Tuesday, sending it to the Senate floor. Sen. Tom UmbergDemocrat from Orange County, thanked Pacheco for bringing “lots and lots of attention to this issue.” A flurry of press coverage, incl several scathing editorialsrevealed widespread resistance to change.

Pacheco said the bill, which was co-sponsored by the California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities, is intended to stop massive requests from people who plan to use the information for commercial gain, such as to train artificial intelligence systems.

In its June 10 iteration, it would have allowed agencies to charge from $22 to $66 an hour to process requests that officials consider “commercial use” — a sharp increase from current rules that allow agencies to charge only for copies of records, typically between 10 and 50 cents per page.

It would also allow agencies to ask local courts to consider whether the request was made with “malicious intent.”

Some groups would be exempt from the higher barriers, including many journalists, academics and other government agencies. However, defense attorneys argue that the threat of going to court or being charged a hefty fee would have a chilling effect on requesting records.

David Snyder is the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which strongly opposed the bill. He said he understood local authorities were facing bad actors, but they now had the ability to refuse “unduly burdensome” requests.

“I think the solution to these problems is not to rewrite the public records law to make it much more difficult for everyone to get records,” he said. “It’s a bad, bad result for everybody.”

Transparency groups are in charge

The First Amendment Coalition already has a neutral position on the current iteration of the bill, along with ACLU California Action, California Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of California.

However, dozens of environmental, justice and transparency groups remain opposed.

“AB 1821’s proposed shift from a calendar to a weekday schedule would normalize delays and disadvantage communities that depend on timely access to information,” wrote the nonprofit Disability Rights California in a statement to the judicial committee.

Eric Lauer, a lobbyist for the California State Association of Counties, told lawmakers Tuesday that a survey the group conducted of public agencies found a nearly 50 percent increase in public records requests over the past three years and a 56 percent increase in the time it takes staff to respond to them.

“We believe it is possible to strike a better balance in the public’s fundamental rights to information and ensure that public agencies can function effectively and efficiently,” he said.

During the hearing, Los Angeles Democratic Sen. Maria Elena Durazo said abuses of the system interfere with the “practice of our democracy” and encouraged Pacheco to continue working on the problem.

Snyder said the First Amendment Coalition is open to helping lawmakers address the problems they describe, but thinks the solutions could be much narrower in scope.

“I sincerely hope that there is no attempt to revive the kinds of amendments that we’ve seen over the last few weeks. I think that would be very damaging to government transparency and government accountability in California.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.