The advocacy committee of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition sent the following letter to Gov. Jared Polis on Monday, April 7, regarding Senate Bill 25-077.
Dear Gov. Polis,
Thank you for acknowledging in your House Bill 25-1041 signing statement Colorado’s current “unfortunate trend of legislative proposals that ultimately impede access to official records.” We share your concerns, which is why we urge you to veto Senate Bill 25-077, Modifications to the Colorado Open Records Act.
The mission of the nonpartisan Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition is to educate Coloradans about their rights under the state’s open-government laws and to advocate for government transparency. Freedom of information is the very foundation of a thriving democracy. As James Madison famously stated, “A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both.”
Although some provisions in SB 25-077 would help requesters of public records in small ways, overall the bill creates additional unnecessary barriers for people seeking to gain a better understanding of state and local government activities in Colorado, which is the very purpose of CORA.
By extending CORA response times to three weeks if governments claim that “extenuating circumstances” apply — which happens frequently — SB 25-077 essentially gives records custodians an excuse to further delay providing public records within a reasonable period of time. We know from the freedom-of-information hotline we’ve run for the past 12 years that government entities often miss the statutory deadlines, and there’s not much that Coloradans can do about it. Colorado’s Court of Appeals recently ruled that the same language in the Judicial Department’s CORA-like policy is not enforceable even when deadlines are missed by months.
Costs associated with CORA requests already create unnecessary barriers to information that not all Coloradans can afford. CORA’s maximum research-and-retrieval rate jumped 23 percent last July 1 to $41.37 an hour. When that rate is multiplied by however many hours it purportedly takes to fulfill a request — the records custodian solely decides that, and it is not reviewable — getting public records can quickly become unaffordable. CFOIC has counted more than 1,500 cities, towns, counties, state agencies, special districts, school districts and public universities that have raised their hourly research-and-retrieval rates since last July 1. SB 25-077 allows records custodians to charge whatever amount a custodian independently determines to be the “reasonable cost directly associated with responding to” a request the custodian decides is for the requester’s pecuniary gain — with no cap on hourly fees — and take more than a month to fulfill such requests.
CFOIC believes the public has a right to government records promptly and at a reasonable cost. Senate Bill 25-077 is a dramatic step backward, one that significantly “impede[s public] access to official records.” Accordingly, consistent with your HB 25-1041 signing statement, we ask you to reject it.
We note that positions taken by CFOIC’s advocacy committee may not represent the positions of all CFOIC member organizations. We hope the executive branch will take necessary actions to encourage the General Assembly to uphold the integrity of CORA and in doing so, let the people of Colorado access the information they have a right to see without unnecessary barriers.
We are happy to meet with you or members of your staff to discuss this further.
Respectfully,
CFOIC Advocacy Committee
