AREA — Legislation that would have redefined governmental transparency and more strictly regulated access to public records was pulled from the agenda of the state Assembly Appropriations Committee last week just hours before the matter was set to be put to an official vote.
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin announced Thursday that the bill, A4045, which included major proposed amendments to the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA), would need to be reconsidered given the wide-spread public opposition that it generated.
“There will not be enough time to compose the amendments, review them and have further meetings with members of the public prior to the Assembly Appropriations Committee vote, and, so, the bill will not be heard for consideration today,” he said via public statement. “We will take the time needed to meet with various stakeholders to modernize OPRA in a way that protects the public from having their personal information, driver’s license numbers and other sensitive information available for anyone to see.”
Among the proposed amendments were provisions to limit access to governmental emails and call logs, digital calendars and “metadata,” a term used to define information generated when a government document is created, edited or changed. Public information requests for emails (which can be obtained by asking for communications between governmental titles or departments under the current statute) would need to include “specific subject matter” and a “discrete and limited time period” in order to be approved, and any request that an agency considered “harassment,” i.e., any request that could lead to the unintentional release of personal information, would be denied.
The proposed amendments prompted widespread backlash from news organizations, labor unions and transparency groups, many of which sent representatives out to testify before the Assembly Committee last week.
“Not only are there serious issues with the manner in which the bill is moving through the Legislature, but, even more importantly, the bill is deeply flawed,” the New Jersey Press Association wrote in a statement of opposition. “Many records that are currently available to the public will be cloaked in secrecy or otherwise made more difficult to obtain if the bill is enacted. And, wrongful denials will be impossible for many to challenge. The bill thwarts this State’s express public policy of ready access to government records and is contrary to New Jersey’s long-standing commitment to transparency in government.” An identical version of the bill, S2930, received a hearing in the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, where its Democratic sponsor, Paul Sarlo (NJ-36), serves as committee chair. Mr. Sarlo said in a public statement that he supported the Assembly’s decision to waylay the bill.
“I believe that certain amendments will make this a better bill,” he said. “There are amendments that will not only foster greater transparency, but will include effective ways of modernizing the 20-year-old OPRA law, reducing the profiteering of OPRA at the expense of municipalities and taxpayers, and protecting the personal information of private citizens.”
Certain state-level representatives, including Acting Comptroller Kevin Walsh (who testified before the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee in opposition to the amendments earlier this month), also publicly shared their objections to the proposed amendments, noting that residents would likely be less willing to come forward with important information if the transparency laws were revised.
“Residents see something that concerns them, and they come to us for an independent and objective look. Some of our most impactful reports started with an OPRA request,” Mr. Walsh said in his testimony. “I fear that if documents are harder to get, we will get less transparency, and that will lead to more corruption, fraud, waste and abuse.”
Supporters of the proposed amendments, including the New Jersey League of Municipalities, argued that the new legislation would protect government entities from corporate groups like data-mining agencies and private residents that seek to extort the system.
“We are not surprised that the Legislature is pumping the brakes on the OPRA reform as it is a complicated policy issue,” the League’s Deputy Director Lori Buckelew said via written communication to The Westfield Leader last week. “The League and our members strongly believe in open and transparent government but have also called for long-overdue and necessary reforms to OPRA. We are hopeful that additional amendments will be crafted shortly to further improve the bill. We remain committed to working with the legislature and any willing stakeholder.”
