Legislative leaders have approved Statehouse floor credentials for The Colorado Independent based on the recommendation of the Capitol press corps. The news nonprofit was denied similar credentials in 2014 because of its past affiliation with left-leaning political advocacy groups.
Technology has made it easier than ever for governments to generate information, yet it also raises barriers to the public’s ability to inspect those records. CFOIC President Steve Zansberg explores this issue in an article for Communications Lawyer magazine.
For the CFOIC, revisiting 2014 reveals a somewhat troubling string of stories about issues and problems affecting government transparency in Colorado. Consider them one by one and you might not be all that concerned. But put them in a list and you could reasonably conclude that open government in the Centennial State is still a work in progress.
Legislative-tracking services are great for getting information on bills making their way through the Colorado legislature and for following how each state lawmaker votes. But how can you tell if a legislator votes for a bill that her constituency doesn’t like? Or if she votes against a bill that her constituency thinks is terrific?
With possible recounts no longer going forward in three counties, the 2014 election is essentially in the books. But a question lingers: Should county canvass boards, those groups of registered voters appointed to certify election results, be subject to Colorado’s Sunshine Law?
Successfully challenging a denial of public records entitles you to some portion of your attorneys’ fees even if it was a records custodian who initiated the court action, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and two other organizations argued in a friend-of-the-court brief.
Public records aren’t supposed to be prohibitively expensive – that was the goal of a new state law capping research-and-retrieval fees. So we were surprised to see a $2,440 estimate to review records from a special district in Falcon.
Plenty of evidence suggests that CSU’s student government is subject to the Sunshine Law and, therefore, a reporter for the student newspaper should not have been barred from a hearing to impeach a student senator.
Following a letter from a CFOIC volunteer attorney, the Jefferson County School District reversed an earlier decision to deny a parent’s request for the names of teachers at his daughter’s high school who collectively called in sick one day last September.
Littleton Schools Superintendent Scott Murphy cited a federal student privacy law as a reason he could not answer reporters’ questions about what school officials knew about threats made by student Karl Pierson before the shooting at Arapahoe High School last December. But FERPA does not apply to adult students who are deceased, according to multiple sources which say that a student’s privacy rights lapse upon his or her death.
