Senate Bill 155 was pulled from the agenda for the Delaware State Senate recently. This very atrocious bill undermines the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and serves no other purpose than to protect public bodies who want to keep things hidden from public consumption.
My issue with the bill is this section: “It amends the examination and copying of public records provisions of FOIA to alleviate the significant time, resources, and financial burdens imposed on public bodies by FOIA requests that are unreasonable, disruptive, or abusive. This Act allows a public body to deny a request from a requestor whose intent is to disrupt the essential functions of the public body or abuse the process and allows a public body to charge administrative fees for all reviews, including the review and redaction of information exempt from FOIA. The review and redaction of information is often performed by non-attorney staff in conjunction with necessary review for exceptions and exclusions.”
The disturbing part is the revelation that redactions are performed by non-attorney staff, which means public bodies have the ability to redact information as they see fit. That isn’t freedom of information. It is cherry-picking what public bodies want the public to see.
Who determines a requestor’s intent? If a public body is doing things that are not essential functions and someone wants to make this publicly known, you better believe it is going to deny the request. The assumption that public bodies are innocent 100% of the time is blatantly false, which is a huge part of why FOIA law exists in the first place.
Administrative fees have been charged for many FOIA requests. I filed a petition against the Delaware Department of Education in 2015. Attorney General Matt Denn’s office ruled that the DOE grossly overcharged their administrative fees in my FOIA request.
The lead sponsor of this bill, Sen. Kyle Evans Gay, D-Talleyville, leads the committee that is allowing the bill for a vote. I recently read the Senate Education Committee was accused of violating FOIA by not posting their committee meeting in the designated time frame for Senate Bill 130, another bill sponsored by Sen. Gay.
This is not what FOIA is about, Sen. Gay. It is dirty politics. Allowing a bill to come before a committee during a time when the chief opposition won’t be able to attend is not just bad form, it is shady beyond belief.
All the sponsors on SB 130 are Democrats, some of whom I believe are progressive in their thoughts. In addition, all the FOIA destroyers on SB 155 are Democrats. What are they thinking? Do they not believe in transparency? Do they not realize the damage they are doing to public trust with both bills?
I urge every Delawarean to email his or her state representative and state senator and urge them to vote no on both bills. Even with Sen. Gay’s amendment dictating that the public body must give a reason to deny a FOIA request, it is still a recipe for corruption and fraud by the public bodies.
Delaware is well-known for being horrible with transparency and violating the public trust. Are we going to allow our legislators to further erode that trust? Both bills harken to a time that should be long past.
We are better than this, Sen. Gay, and I urge you to pull both these bills and table them. SB 130 is a special-interest bill, lobbied by the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association to get coaches more money. SB 155 is a despicable and ugly bill. You can do better than this, Sen. Gay.
Kevin Ohlandt
Dover
