Stungby a unanimous stream of criticism from the state's top three press andconstitutional rights organizations, lawyers for the state AttorneyGeneral's office said they have placed a bill aimed at addressingabusers of the state's Public Records Act on a legislative "slow track"while they give the issue further study.
The bill, AB 520, was authored by Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter (D-Rialto)and had been officially sponsored by Attorney General Jerry Brown. Ifenacted as written, the legislation would allow governmentalinstitutions and agencies to seek out court orders against individualswhom they have deemed to be abusing or harassing the given institutionor agency through improper or "vexatious" records act requests.
The legislation was scheduled to be heard by the Assembly's Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Officials with the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the California First Amendment Coalition and Californians Aware allfiled protests against the proposed law, saying it would have achilling effect on the legal rights of Californians to monitor theoperations of local and statewide government. Those same officialsadded that if a court finds the requester has made a request for "animproper purpose," it could limit or eliminate an agency's duty torespond to requests in the future.
DeputyAttorney General Marc Le Forestier, supervisor of the office'slegislative affairs unit, said AB 520 has been re-classified as a"two-year" cycle bill. Under that designation the bill be kept in alegislative "holding" area and not acted upon. The Attorney General'soffice and Carter, however, have until the end of the year to decidewhether to revive the legislation for consideration in 2010 or let itdie outright.
"Webelieve that abuse of the Act continues to be a real problem that needsresolution," Le Forestier said. "At this point, however, we need tostudy the legislation further."
LeForestier said previously that examples of Record Act abuse doesexists. He said in one case a man filed a records act request thatended up with the agency involved making copies of 20,000 documents.When the agency was ready to release the documents the man never showedup to pick them up. Another case of seeming abuse involved a person whomade 174 separate requests of one agency over the course of a year. Hedeclined to name the requestors or the agencies involved, citingattorney-client confidentiality.
Terry Francke, general counsel of CalAware, applauded the decision by the Attorney General's office and Carter.
"[We believe] that it was a wise second thought by the sponsor and the author," Francke said.
Carter'spress secretary did not respond to an e-mail request for comment on thebill Tuesday. The lawmaker, however, said last week that she onlysponsored AB 520 as a "courtesy" to the Attorney General's office andthat she would drop the bill outright if support from media industryand constitutional rights groups could not be obtained.
Follow Jeff Mitchell's political blog at BAPolitix.org