If Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish is trying to enamor herself with New Mexico newspapers, her moves were smooth. We’re smitten.
The lieutenant governor dropped three bills Feb. 6 that were a newspaper person’s dream in the realm of open records and the buzz-word around the round house: transparency. Let’s be clear, the word is buzzing around the hallowed halls but that’s about all. As usual, legislators are coming up short in the action department.
Denish has some sweetheart bills being presented in the house regarding open records and more transparency, yes that word, in state government.
The first one would be adorable, if we can find the money to fund it. Of course that’s difficult in this financial climate. House Bill 546, introduced by Al Park, D-Bernalillo, would require the general services division to maintain an online public data base of state contracts and contractors.
Wow! That would be a new level of transparency in state government. Currently, the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t even have to disclose who they are doing business with. The state will cough up contracts and bids but you better bring a lantern and sleeping bag if you’re going to wait for the documents. It’s strictly an unfriendly field of land mines set up by public information officers in most departments.
S.U. Mahesh, the highway department’s mouthpiece, leads the pack. It took the SUN months of phone calls, letters, and lawyers to get information on the stretch of highway between Pojoaque and Arroyo Seco that had been “improved.” To go to a data base and get that information would be divine.
In today’s environment of pay to play in state politics, knowing who is getting what contracts would go a long way toward picking up some public support, versus its scorn for politicians.
The next bill tugging at our heart strings is one being carried by Gail Chasey, D-Bernalillo. House Bill 272 would also illuminate information when it comes to campaign finance reporting. Park’s bill would take out some exceptions to the campaign finance reporting law, change the schedule for filing and include some folks for reporting who aren’t included in the law now.
This bill won’t cost taxpayers money but politicians hate to report campaign donations, much less more frequently or for lower amounts. This bill will face some tough competition.
A great amendment to the Inspection of Public Records Act is Ken Martinez’, D-Cibola, House Bill 507. It does several lovely things.
First it changes the law to state clearly that an e-mail is a written request. Many public agencies don’t like to treat e-mails as written requests. It’s just another way to argue not to hand over public records. If they would go so far as to print out the e-mail, poof! it’s a written request.
HB 507 would also shorten response times from three days to two days and make public records custodians provide records in ten days instead of the current 15. A good example of abusing the 15 day rule is the SUN’s request for the Española Military Academy’s request to education secretary Veronica Garcia for reinstatement.
The Academy’s lawyer Patricia Matthews says she is the records custodian and she’ll provide the documents after 15 days. She has the documents now. So does the Academy and probably a board member or three. But the law allows them to drag their feet, force a drive to the lawyer’s office in Santa Fe and just make it difficult unless we get a lawyer to fight their lawyer. We’re out money, we still get the records inside what the law allows and the Academy gets to keep its response out of the public’s eye for another week.
Dropping that law to ten days won’t hurt anyone and the exception for broad and burdensome can still buy custodians time, if it’s valid.
The bill also adds language that would make a record custodian specifically explain why a document was determined to be exempt from the Act. That falls in line with our settlement with State Police, where that department like to just use blanket “under investigation” for every records request denied. The settlement forced that department to get specific and fall in line with the law.
This change would force all public records custodians to do the same.
There’s three gorgeous pieces of legislation newspapers can give a big hug. Now the trick is to see if we can sweet-talk legislators to do the right thing: allow more public access to public documents.