The Colorado legislature moved closer Monday to changing the state’s public-records law in favor of state and local government officials, who have complained about an increasing volume of requests from the public.
The House’s State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee approved Senate Bill 77 on an 8-3 party-line vote in the late afternoon. It was the first of two votes related to the state’s transparency laws Monday. The committee’s Democrats then rejected a Republican bill that, among other things, would repeal a law passed last year that exempted the legislature from parts of the state’s open-meetings law.
Both measures are part of multiyear debates at the Colorado legislature about the state’s transparency laws.
Lawmakers exempted themselves from part of the open-meetings law after two of their colleagues sued them for allegedly violating that law. The changes were defended as necessary to allow lawmakers to communicate and legislate, but they also sparked criticisms from transparency advocates.
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers have tried for the past year to limit another transparency law, the Colorado Open Records Act, known as CORA, in response to what they’ve described as a deluge of requests to local entities. This year’s attempt — SB-77, which is now two House votes away from passage — would give governmental entities more time to respond to requests under CORA.
The timeline could be further extended if the agency determined the request was made for the requester’s explicit financial gain.
Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican co-sponsoring the CORA bill, said it’s often hard for public officials — especially in smaller agencies — to comply with CORA’s timeline requirements. During a Senate committee last month, Democratic Sen. Cathy Kipp, another sponsor, said the number of records requests had increased “substantially,” and she argued the state’s response time was unique nationally.
The law now requires government officials to respond to CORA requests within three business days, and it allows officials to extend their timeline by seven additional working days. For members of the public who aren’t journalists, the bill would change the first deadline to five days and would allow extensions to stretch up to 10 more days.
“This is a reasonable update to Colorado’s open-records law,” Soper told his House colleagues Monday afternoon. In addition to Kipp, the bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Rep. Michael Carter and Republican Sen. Janice Rich. Kipp and Soper sponsored the first attempt last year.
Repeat requesters affected
The proposal would also allow records custodians essentially to bundle similar requests made by the same person. That would mean officials could charge more to fulfill the inquiries, without offering each request a free hour of review, as required under the law.
The bill would also split how the law operates. The measure’s changes would not apply to requests from the media, defined as “any publisher of a newspaper or periodical; wire service; radio or television station or network; news or feature syndicate; or cable television system.”
Governmental agencies would still be required to respond to reporters’ requests under the current timeline of three business days.
Jeff Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, told lawmakers he was concerned about the extended timelines. Other critics who testified against the bill Monday questioned the bill’s deference to journalists — which, they charged, would make other members of the public “second-class citizens” under CORA.
SB-77, which has already passed the Senate, now heads to the full House. Assuming it passes that chamber, it will then go to Gov. Jared Polis for signature into law.
Open-meetings reform fizzles
House Bill 1242 — the bill that would repeal the open-meetings law exemptions the legislature bestowed upon itself last year — has no such path.
The House’s state and civic affairs committee killed it on a party-line 3-8 vote, a reverse of the Democrat-only vote that advanced SB-77.
Democratic lawmakers argued last year that the exemptions “clarified” existing law: The changes now allow small groups of legislators to discuss public policy without announcing the meetings publicly, and it provides exemptions for lawmakers meeting outside of legislative sessions.
A few months after Polis signed the changes into law, they were used to block reporters from attending Democratic caucus meetings ahead of the August special session.
On Monday, Republican committee members backed the repeal bill, which also would’ve changed some provisions of CORA. Rep. Stephanie Luck, a Penrose Republican, agreed that the previous version of the open-meetings law was “practically impossible” to follow for lawmakers.
But, she said, “I do agree with the notion that as much as can be open to scrutiny … should be open to deliberations.”
But Democratic members said the legislature was already open and transparent and that the prior version of the law was unworkable in the Capitol.
“It is as open as it can be,” Centennial Democratic Rep. Chad Clifford said. “But (the open-meetings law) should not stifle the process, to give me the opportunity to talk with my colleagues.”
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