{"id":381430,"date":"2026-07-01T00:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T00:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/381430\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T00:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T00:22:11","slug":"california-public-records-bill-scaled-back-again-after-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/381430\/","title":{"rendered":"California public records bill scaled back again after backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kate Wolffe<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""California\"
\n\t\t\t\tAssemblymembers during session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on June 25, 2026. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco<\/a> has once again rolled back her controversial proposal to amend California\u2019s public records rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Downey Democrat alarmed First Amendment advocates in March<\/a> when she introduced a measure that would make it more expensive for some people to get public records from government agencies, which she said was intended to cut down on malicious or profit-driven requests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Facing strong opposition, she scaled back the measure. Then, once it passed out of the Assembly, she inserted high fees for records requests and added new ways counties could deny requests<\/a>, such as if they were submitted through incorrect means or a court found the requester to have \u201cmalicious intent\u201d. After another outcry, they\u2019re out again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its current, reduced state, Assembly Bill 1821<\/a> would extend the amount of time an agency has to respond to a request from 10 calendar days to 10 business days. The request could be extended by no more than 14 business days, up from 14 calendar days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, timelines are calculated in calendar days while the work of reviewing happens during business hours,\u201d said Pacheco. She said she had amended the bill in response to feedback she had received.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed it Tuesday, sending it to the Senate floor. Sen. Tom Umberg<\/a>, an Orange County Democrat, thanked Pacheco for bringing \u201clots and lots of attention to this issue.\u201d A wave of press coverage, including several<\/a> scathing<\/a> editorials<\/a>, revealed broad opposition to the changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pacheco said the bill, which was co-sponsored by the California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities, was intended to crack down on voluminous requests from people who planned to use the information for commercial gain, such as to train artificial intelligence systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its June 10 iteration, it would have allowed agencies to charge $22 to $66 an hour to process requests officials deem to be for \u201ccommercial use\u201d \u2014 a steep increase from current rules that only allow agencies to charge for copies of records, typically between 10 to 50 cents a page.<\/p>\n

It would have also allowed agencies to ask local courts to weigh in on whether or not a request was made with \u201cmalicious intent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Certain groups would have been exempted from the higher barriers, including many journalists, academics, and other government agencies. Still, advocates argued the threat of going to court or being charged a high fee would produce a chilling effect on requesting records.<\/p>\n

David Snyder is the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which vehemently opposed the bill. He said he understands that local governments are facing bad actors, but they already have the ability to refuse \u201cunduly burdensome\u201d requests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the solution to those problems is not to rewrite the public records act to make it much harder for everybody to get records,\u201d he said. \u201cThat’s a bad, bad outcome for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transparency groups respond<\/p>\n

The First Amendment Coalition now 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.<\/p>\n

However, dozens of environmental, justice, and transparency groups remain opposed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAB 1821\u2019s proposed shift from a calendar to a business day timeline would normalize delay and further disadvantage communities that depend on timely access to information,\u201d wrote the nonprofit Disability Rights California in a statement<\/a> to the judiciary committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eric Lawyer, 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% increase in public records requests over the past three years and a 56% increase in staff time needed to respond to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it is possible to achieve a better balance in the public’s essential rights to information and ensure public agencies can function effectively and efficiently,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Los Angeles Democratic Sen. Mar\u00eda Elena Durazo<\/a> said abuses of the system get in the way of \u201cpracticing our democracy\u201d and encouraged Pacheco to continue to work on the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Snyder said the First Amendment Coalition is open to helping legislators tackle the problems they describe, however he thinks solutions can be much narrower in scope.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI sincerely hope that there’s no attempt to revive the kinds of amendments that we saw over the last several weeks. I think that would be very damaging to government transparency and to government accountability in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kate Wolffe, CalMatters Assemblymembers during session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on June 25, 2026. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2675,7,9,1843,8],"class_list":["post-381430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-accountability","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-legislature","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}