April 7, 2025

Several civil society groups recently wrote a letter to the Appropriations Committees of the House and Senate.  Here is an excerpt:

The undersigned organizations are writing to express our deep concern about the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) taking down its public apportionment website, as reported in Roll Call on March 24.1 The website is a critical tool for Congress and the public to ensure that the funding passed in appropriations laws is spent consistent with congressional intent. Further, taking down the website appears to violate the law requiring this information to be made public.

Organizations from across the political spectrum supported passage of provisions in the bipartisan FY 2022 Omnibus Appropriations bill requiring OMB to make information on apportionments of federal funds available to the public. 

The letter was signed by:

American Governance Institute
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Freedom of the Press Foundation
League of Women Voters of the United States
National Taxpayers Union
People For the American Way
Project On Government Oversight
Protect Democracy
R Street Institute
Taxpayers for Common Sense

By: Dave Maass, March 11, 2025

Over the years, EFF has teamed up with MuckRock to document and ridicule these FOIA fails and transparency trip-ups.

And through a partnership with AAN Publishers, we have named-and-shamed the culprits in weekly newspapers and on indie news sites across the United States in celebration of Sunshine Week, an annual event raising awareness of the role access to public records plays in a democracy.   

This year, we reflect on the most absurd and frustrating winners from the last 10 years as we prepare for the next decade, which may even be more terrible for government transparency.

By: www.Brechner.org, March 21, 2025

The first Sunshine Fest enabled about 160 people from throughout the country – and also from Canada, Brazil and Ghana – to discuss solutions to the most pressing problems in government transparency.

The sold-out event was coordinated by the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications to note the 20th anniversary of national Sunshine Week, which promotes the public’s right to know yearly in March.

Recordings of the plenary sessions are posted at the Sunshine Week YouTube page, available from this page. A session about AI is online at YouTube, and a session about enforcement mechanisms was recorded via audio. 

The Brechner FOI project also launched the Sunshine United Network to continue this conversation throughout the year.

By: Vanderbilt University, April 11, 2025

Led by student-attorneys Abdullah Ali, ’26, and Logan Paeglis, ’26, the Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic at Vanderbilt Law School filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of clients Open Justice Baltimore (“OJB”), Alissa Figueroa, and Brandon Soderberg.

The Clinic’s clients report on police misconduct within the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”).  As part of their reporting, they each made public records requests under the Maryland Public Information Act for records related to officer misconduct, but BPD repeatedly obstructed disclosure of records to the client group. The group filed suit, alleging First Amendment violations based on content and viewpoint-based discrimination and retaliation against constitutionally protected speech.

Despite robust allegations, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of the client group’s complaint. In affirming, the Fourth Circuit emphasized so-called “obvious alternative explanations” for BPD’s obstruction. The appellate court settled on “bureaucratic dysfunction” as the reason that the clients received delayed and deficient responses to records requests.

Undeterred by the court’s reliance on a pretextual explanation, Ali and Paeglis identified a split amongst the circuit courts regarding how the burden to either substantiate or negate a defendant’s proffered “obvious alternative explanation” for alleged conduct is allocated between parties, which is the basis of the petition for certiorari.

By: Scott Franz, CPR News, March 5, 2025

Almost a year after Colorado lawmakers frustrated transparency advocates by exempting themselves from parts of the open meetings law, a coalition of residents seeking more access to government records and meetings says it’s drafting a potential ballot initiative to strengthen “the public’s right to know.”

The group is calling itself “Team Transparency,” and it’s been meeting monthly in Denver to talk through proposals to send to voters in 2026.

It’s also uniting and attracting groups that have found themselves at opposite ends of political issues in the past.

“We all want to be able to watch government as it does its work. We want to see what they are doing,” Caldara said last week. “Government should be more and more open. It surprised me to find out that Colorado is only one of two states that don't live stream their committee meetings.”

By: Rachana Pradhan & Brett Kelman, KFF Health News, April 9, 2025

Public access to government records that document the handling of illnesses, faulty products, and safety lapses at health facilities will slow after mass firings at the federal Department of Health and Human Services swept out staff members responsible for releasing records, according to transparency advocates and health experts.

At HHS, FOIA requests are used to obtain a litany of records, including detailed CDC information about large outbreaks of food and waterborne illnesses, and FDA inspection reports of facilities that make food, drugs, medical devices, and dental products. (FOIA is a transparency law that guarantees public access to the inner workings of federal agencies by requiring officials to release government documents.)

All these efforts will be slowed by the purge of FOIA offices, said Michael Morisy, CEO of MuckRock, a nonprofit group that helps journalists and others file public records requests. Scientists will have less to study. Attorneys and advocates will struggle to build cases and fight for causes. Simply, Americans will know less about their government and the industries it regulates and be less able to hold them both to account.

By: Marlene Halpin, The Suffolk Journal, February 12. 2025

Massachusetts public records law outlines 21 exemptions that can be cited by agencies when refusing access to a record.

The first is a “statutory exemption” that ties in an undefined number of other statutes as a valid reason for records to be refused. The ambiguity of this exemption makes it difficult for journalists and the public to keep track of what they have access to.

“It’s like a kitchen sink exemption that says if there’s any other law that says it’s confidential then it’s not public record,” said Wallack. “There are probably hundreds of separate laws that mention somewhere that these particular records are exempt, whether it’s educational records, whether it’s records about child abuse, it goes on and on and on.”

Massachusetts is the only state in which the executive, legislative and judicial branches are all exempt from public records. Massachusetts and Michigan are the only two states in the nation that exempt the governor’s office.

By: Robert Gehrke, Salt Lake Tribune, March 29, 2025

The Utah Legislature became the first two-time winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’ nationalBlack Hole Award,awarded annually to the government entity that gulps up sunshine and blots out transparency.

Utah locked up the “dishonor,” according to SPJ, for bills that dismantle the state’s records committee, make it virtually impossible for the public to recoup legal fees when records are improperly withheld, obscure college president searches and axe language recognizing the public’s constitutional right to access information about how their government operates.

How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities—and the Local Heroes Fighting Back.

A groundbreaking look at how ordinary people are fighting back against their local and state governments to keep their communities safe, by an award-winning journalist.

“We ignore the use of secrecy at the state and local level at our peril.” —from the introduction 

A work of riveting narrative nonfiction based on years of original reporting, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards tells the story of five “accidental activists”—people from across the United States who started questioning why their local and state governments didn’t protect them from issues facing their communities and why there was a frightening lack of transparency surrounding the way these issues were resolved. 

By: Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capitol Dispatch, March 24, 2025

The Iowa House passed legislation Monday to increase training for local officials on open meetings and information laws and raising penalties for violations. 

“We need to hold our mayor and city council accountable,” Gosa said. They do have some things to answer for, and we’ve been dealing with this for a long time.” 

By: Jill Nolin, Georgia Recorder, March 25, 2025 

An attempt to crack down on so-called doxxing has been met with concerns from attorneys and First Amendment advocates who say the proposal is too broad and would hamper free speech. 

Sarah Brewerton-Palmer, the foundation’s president, said the doxxing issue is legitimate and needs to be addressed. But she argued that the proposal being considered is overly broad, particularly with the lower-level offense that includes situations where the offender demonstrated reckless disregard.  If passed, she said the bill would have a chilling effect on First Amendment protected speech – and could even ensnare journalists. 

“Senate Bill 27 presents little realistic likelihood of remedying those ills, while exposing innocent speakers and writers to arrest and prosecution that could be triggered by nothing more than publishing an already-prominent person’s name,” she said. 

Learn More Here

By: Niki Kelly, March 21, 2025 

It’s Sunshine Week, which isn’t just about journalists. The nonpartisan collaboration of civic, media, education, government and private sectors shines a light on the importance of public records and open government. 

And all citizens have a right to both. 

By: Annie Knox, Andrew Adams and Courtney Johns, KSL-TV, February 11, 2025 

In a major change, lawmakers are discussing removing a key test used to settle disputes over public records that weighs the public’s benefit and interest in learning the information against privacy concerns.  

When cities, police departments or other government agencies grant requests for records, that public interest factor is a common reason behind the decision. Taking it away would tip the scale toward secrecy, said Reymann, who’s representing the Utah Media Coalition in negotiations with lawmakers on the measures. 

Also under consideration by McKell and his colleagues: preventing those fighting for records from recouping attorney fees if they win in court and a judge determines the government agency’s legal position was unreasonable. 

By: Bobby Block, The Palm Beach Post, February 8, 2025

There was a time when Florida set the gold standard for open government. Our Sunshine laws were the envy of the nation, a model for accountability, transparency and public access to information about what our government gets up to. Those days are over. Today, Florida is sliding into secrecy at an alarming pace, and the blame rests squarely with Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state agencies following his lead.

The New Jersey Supreme Court will weigh whether internal affairs records of police misconduct should be public under the common law right of access — as an appellate panel recently decreed — or hidden from public scrutiny if officers successfully get their criminal records expunged.  

By: Angela Couloumbis, Spotlight PA, December 20, 2024

The case pits the news organization against the Pennsylvania Senate, which last year denied a request under the state’s Right-to-Know Law for emails between lawmakers and a group of lobbyists.

Spotlight PA had requested the correspondence as part of its  investigation into allegations of political corruption in the city of DuBois, which had employed lobbyists and received generous state grants. 

The state Senate swiftly and summarily denied the request, asserting that emails do not fall under one of the 19 categories of records that the legislature must make public under the law.  

Spotlight PA appealed, arguing that a clause within the Right-to-Know Law provides public access to lobbyist-lawmaker correspondence. The case is now before Commonwealth Court.

Fee Increases for Video Records:  

Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio signed new legislation that will allow law enforcement agencies to charge $750 for processing video that is a public record. This includes a variety of police videos such as officers' dashboard cameras, body cameras, and jail surveillance.

Opioid Database Available 

Johns Hopkins University has made available to the public an archive of millions of documents created by opioid manufacturers and related companies, hosted by the UCSF Library in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University. 

Bill aims to streamline access to public records, but opponents worry about cost.

A bill to streamline the way state agencies respond to public records requests will more effectively administer the right to know, protected in the state Constitution, said the sponsor.