A bill winding its way through Sacramento right now would make some of the biggest changes in decades to the California Public Records Act \u2014 the 58-year-old state law that guarantees everyone has access to government documents and data. <\/p>\n
Proponents argue AB 1821<\/a> is necessary to help local governments weather a deluge of burdensome requests that have swamped cities and other local agencies. But the changes it proposes have alarmed First Amendment groups<\/a>, many<\/a>news organizations<\/a>, and government watchdogs, who worry it will allow officials to delay handing over records and impose financial barriers to information access. <\/p>\n So far, Oakland\u2019s political leaders have backed the bill.<\/p>\n Early last month, the City Council voted unanimously to support it<\/a>. In late May, East Bay assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Mia Bonta each voted to advance the bill out of their chamber and onto the state senate. The version of the bill they backed would have made one specific change to the California Public Records Act \u2014 giving officials several more days to respond to a records request.<\/p>\n Then last week, the bill\u2019s author, Blanca Pacheco<\/a>, who represents Downey in Southern California, added several dramatic amendments to the bill.<\/p>\n As it now stands, AB 1821<\/a> would give government officials the power to treat some records requests as \u201ccommercial\u201d in nature and charge requesters fees. It would also allow local governments to file suit against any requester they believed was operating with \u201cmalicious intent.\u201d A judge could then impose fees. <\/p>\n Those fees would cover the time it takes a local government\u2019s staff to find and review public records before handing them over and could be assessed at anywhere from $22 to $66 per hour. They could add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars for complex requests. Currently, government agencies can only charge fees for the cost of copying records, a charge usually waived when records are provided digitally.<\/p>\n Lastly, the bill would give agencies broad powers to restrict when and how people file public records requests \u2014 for example, by only accepting them by phone or email during regular business hours. Oakland and many other local governments currently accept requests 24\/7 through an online portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Sign up for Morning Wire: All three of these more restrictive measures were present when Pacheco first introduced the bill in February. But her colleagues in the assembly had removed those controversial sections before taking a vote. <\/p>\n \u201cThis bill would be a giant step backward on the government transparency and accountability front, putting California among the states that are the worst on access to government records,\u201d David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition<\/a>, a free speech group, told The Oaklandside. \u201cIt would move California in exactly the wrong direction at exactly the wrong time. With the fundamentals of democracy under regular attack from Washington, the last thing California should do is follow suit.\u201d The First Amendment Coalition has represented The Oaklandside on press freedom issues. Cityside, The Oaklandside\u2019s parent organization, does not weigh in on public policy issues except those that pertain to press freedom; it has taken a position opposing the amended bill.<\/p>\n Pacheco: governments are overwhelmed by records requests<\/p>\n Pacheco said her bill responds to a significant recent increase in the number of records requests cities, counties, and other public agencies are getting. Some of the requests seek such large quantities of records or data that they are overwhelming public servants, she said, and interfering with their other work.<\/p>\n \u201cSome cases span years of records, require review of hundreds of thousands of documents, and take months or longer to complete,\u201d Pacheco said during an April 14 hearing of the assembly\u2019s Judiciary Committee. \u201cMy home city of Downey has seen a 73% increase of records requests since 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The city of Fontana, Pacheco said, was peppered with time-consuming requests by a person who admitted they wanted to \u201cdisrupt\u201d city services. <\/p>\n Donald Larkin, a lawyer with Burke Williams and Sorensen, a firm with offices across the state, works with the League of California Cities. He said during an assembly hearing that one person sent a public records request in 2023 to every city in five Bay Area counties asking for all emails sent to all public officials. The requester was going to feed the emails into an artificial intelligence model and sell the AI model back to the cities, said Larkin.<\/p>\n Currently, the law allows government agencies to deny a records request if it would be \u201cunduly burdensome,\u201d meaning it would take up too much time or cost too much money to fulfill. Courts have often sided with governments when someone asks them to go on a so-called \u201cfishing expedition,\u201d looking through thousands of records when the public interest served by doing so isn\u2019t obvious.<\/p>\n Alina Evans, Pacheco\u2019s spokesperson, told The Oaklandside that a 2021 court ruling<\/a> \u201cconstrains what can be covered under those limitations.\u201d In that case, an El Dorado County man\u2019s request turned up 47,000 potentially responsive records. The county objected to having to hand over so many emails, but a judge ruled the request wasn\u2019t overbroad or unduly burdensome. <\/p>\n \u201cExisting law does not address whether taxpayers should bear the full search and review costs when a request is made for private commercial benefit,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n But the changes AB 1821 would make to address these issues go too far, opponents of the bill have said. Snyder, of the First Amendment Coalition, called the fees a \u201cdirect attack on government transparency laws\u201d in a blog post<\/a> this week. He said the provision that would let agencies file lawsuits is the most damaging.<\/p>\n \u201cThis provision alone makes AB 1821 a nonstarter,\u201d Snyder wrote. \u201cIt would be easily weaponized by agencies seeking to thwart transparency and accountability, as has already happened elsewhere in the country.\u201d He said the possibility of being sued will lead to an \u201cintolerable chill on the public exercising its right\u201d to government records.<\/p>\n Oakland leaders also say they\u2019re overwhelmed<\/p>\n Council President Kevin Jenkins, who introduced the Oakland resolution supporting the earlier version of SB 1821, said Oakland\u2019s also been overwhelmed by public records requests.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to get through all the requests \u2014 it\u2019s unmanageable,\u201d he said. His office is still going through a backlog of requests from the tenure of his predecessor, Loren Taylor, he said.<\/p>\n Jenkins said he would need to review the amendments to Pacheco\u2019s bill before determining whether he still supports it. We sent him and all other Oakland councilmembers information on the new language, but we\u2019ve only heard back from some. <\/p>\n Zac Unger said he\u2019d need more time to look over the details.<\/p>\n When we told him about the proposed fees and court petitions for \u201cmalicious\u201d requests, Councilmember Ken Houston said they sounded reasonable. \u201cRegular people\u201d and the news media should be able to access records readily, but \u201cthe frivolous ones, the people hiding behind fake emails, the people doing this undercover, sneaky \u2014 it should be stopped,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s costly for my office; some people should burden the cost of that,\u201d Houston said. \u201cThe city should be ran like a business.\u201d<\/p>\n Councilmember Charlene Wang said she was wary of leaving it up to public agencies or courts to determine what constitutes \u201cmalicious intent.\u201d<\/p>\n Wang hadn\u2019t seen the latest bill language when we spoke, but she said the amended bill sounded like something she\u2019d oppose. With the proposed expansion of powers, public agencies could \u201cweaponize\u201d the Public Records Act, she said. <\/p>\n
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