Legislative Assault on the Public Records Act

In a move that threatens the ability of Californians to hold their elected officials accountable to the public interest, the legislature late last week included a sly, last-minute amendment to the 2013-2014 budget now awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown's signature that substantially limits the public's right to know what our local leaders are doing in our name.

This 11th hour amendment makes it easier for public agencies to simply ignore requests for otherwise public documents for long periods of time, with no notice, making it significantly more difficult for the average citizen to access his or her constitutional right to inspect public records.

This type of surreptitious, late-night assault on the public's right to know is fundamentally contrary to the notion of an open and fair democratic government. The California Public Records Act is designed to create transparency in government action, yet the legislature has seen fit to darken this transparency in the dead of night by curtailing a right that has been the law of the land since 1968. This critical right of access was also enshrined in the California Constitution in 2004 when the voters passed Proposition 59 by an overwhelming 82 percent.

The legislature argues that this amendment will save needed and dwindling public funds. However, there is no information showing that public entities will actually save money and, if so, how much. This reasoning is especially specious given the likelihood that these amendments will lead to Public Records Act lawsuits clogging our courts because public entities just failed to respond in a reasonable amount of time – leaving the requesting party with no other remedy than to seek judicial enforcement; a remedy that also requires public entities to pay attorney's fees. Hence, this new provision will ultimately cost money, rather than save money.

In any event, any alleged cost savings would come at the expense of public access.

We call upon the legislature and governor to undo this egregious affront to a fair, open and democratic government.

Update

In a victory for open government advocates, the California Senate on Monday approved a revised budget bill that does not contain controversial that would have gutted the California Public Records Act. The bill now heads to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk. An initiative to amend the state Constitution to mandate that local governments comply with the Public Records Act at their own expense is expected to be on the 2014 ballot.

Kim Horiuchi is a former attorney with the ACLU of California.