Despite a looming inflationary increase in fees, state lawmakers in the 2023 legislative session never addressed the often-high cost of obtaining public records in Colorado but did vote to eliminate some nagging obstacles for users of the Colorado Open Records Act.
Promising to keep working to improve access to state-and-local government for people with disabilities, a lawmaker requested the defeat of his own bill to mandate the livestreaming of public body meetings and make other changes to help all Coloradans participate in democracy more fully and equally.
State senators rewrote an open meetings bill, leaving only a provision that bars pro se litigants who challenge the legality of executive sessions from collecting court costs and attorney fees if they prevail in court.
Legislators defeated a CORA bill amendment, proposed by Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, aimed at opening records on the Democrats’ use of a secret survey to help decide the fate of bills requiring state funding.
An open meetings bill in the Colorado legislature no longer requires plaintiffs to pay the court costs and attorney fees of local government bodies they unsuccessfully sue over executive session announcements.
State and local elected officials could block anyone from their private social media accounts for bullying, harassment, intimidation or “any reason” under a bill endorsed by Colorado lawmakers.
A CORA modernization bill passed a Colorado Senate committee with lawmakers adding a provision that prohibits state agencies and local governments from requiring requesters to show identification to obtain public records.
Unlike a draft circulating at the state Capitol since mid-March, the introduced version of a bill amending the Colorado Open Records Act would not affect public records fees, which are set to rise with inflation in 2024.
As amended by the Colorado House, an open meetings bill still significantly weakens Coloradans’ ability to enforce a 22-year-old provision in the Sunshine Law requiring school boards and other local public bodies to announce the topics of closed-door meetings with some specificity.
There will be no “presumptive” livestreaming of criminal trials and evidentiary hearings in state courts, but judges may allow those proceedings to be broadcast on Webex or another videoconferencing platform after considering several factors, a directive issued by Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Brian Boatright says.
