The Complete Colorado: Just before Governor John Hickenlooper signed into law one of the most talked about bills of the 2017 legislative session, Senator John Kefalas, (D-Fort Collins) joked about the ups and downs of getting Senate Bill 17-040, known as Public Access to Government Files, through both chambers of the General Assembly.

“Greg Romberg and I talked about writing a memoir about this,” he said with a laugh. “But it does take a meaningful step forward in terms of making things available to the public.”

Romberg is a lobbyist for the Colorado Press Association and the Colorado Broadcasters Association.

Kefalas also got a lot of help from two freshman legislators in the House who rallied their colleagues in the final days of the session to support the bill.

Although supporters say there is still a long way to go with Colorado’s open records laws, the bill makes it easier for those seeking access to spreadsheets and other manipulatable data to obtain that data in its original format.

“Fundamentally the issue was that everybody agrees the government is the custodian of public records; the public records belong to the people, and therefore, we have a responsibility to make sure people can have proper access,” Kefalas said on Thursday. “They should be able to access them electronically in a way that allows them to analyze, sort and figure out the activities of government.”

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