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Committee replaces House FOIA bill with substitute that preserves disclosure and clarifies exemptions
Summary
A committee substitute for House Bill 3412 removed a provision that would have made the Freedom of Information Act inapplicable to the Legislature, extended agency response deadlines, and clarified many exemptions; the committee voted to report the substitute to the full Senate.
The Senate Government Organization Committee unanimously agreed to a committee substitute for House Bill 3412 that retains FOIA's applicability to the Legislature and clarifies multiple exemptions and processing rules.
Counsel told the committee the house bill originally provided that the Freedom of Information Act would not apply to the Legislature. The committee substitute strikes that provision, removes a requirement that the act be liberally construed in favor of disclosure, and adds or clarifies multiple exemptions and procedural changes.
Key provisions in the substitute include adding campus police officers to the definition of law-enforcement officer; defining "private personal information" (including personal financial data, personal phone numbers, personal email addresses, Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers, dates of birth, residential addresses and certain diary or note entries); and clarifying that the substitute's references to "personal electronic devices" do not include government-issued devices. Counsel said the substitute also extends the response deadline for agencies from five to 14 days and permits agencies to charge a reasonable search-and-retrieval fee based on man-hours.
The substitute expands attorney-client and attorney-work-product exemptions, broadens exemptions for internal memoranda and deliberative documents, and expands exemptions for security-related records, including passwords and network-security materials. Counsel said several of the new or clarified exemptions overlap with protections already recognized by courts or other code sections but that the substitute consolidates them so practitioners can find them in a single place.
Senators on the committee praised the substitute for preserving legislative transparency compared with the version sent by the House. One senator called the House bill "a horrible message" and commended the substitute for maintaining accountability. The committee adopted the substitute by voice vote and reported the bill to the full Senate with a recommendation that it pass as amended.
The substitute makes numerous technical changes and preserves several reporting requirements for committees that will remain in statute even when membership provisions are shifted to rule, counsel said.
