The Denver Post: It should have been a simple fix to Colorado’s Open Records Act, but instead it became a complex political negotiation that was almost derailed.

Thankfully Colorado lawmakers were able to wrangle Senate Bill 40 back into a six-page, manageable piece of legislation requiring that government entities release records in digital formats that are searchable and sortable if the data or information is already in that format.

State Sens. John Kefalas and Bob Gardner and Rep. Dan Pabon made a few concessions in the bill to get it through a divided legislature on the issue, but all of the changes seem, at face value, to be reasonable. We are glad the lawmakers abandoned a version of the bill that we worried had become so heavily amended it could have opened up the floodgates for denials to legitimate public-records requests.

Everyone should care that lawmakers were able to find a solution to this problem. As technology advances, it has become easier for the public to be watchdogs of their own government, and as government has grown and the number of journalists has decreased, the Fourth Estate can no longer do it alone. We need your help.

Wonder what your local water district is up to? Thankfully, those entities are almost always subject to CORA as quasi-governmental agencies and you can request their data on things regarding water quality or user fees and rates.

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