Controversial provision stripped from open records bill

A controversial provision on a major open records bill, which required notification of public officials subject of a request, was stripped from the legislation Wednesdday.

Open government advocates had argued the provision, sponsored by Rep. Mary Pruitt (D-Nashville), would have led to intimidation and prevented citizens from filing records’ requests.

Today, the House Budget Subcommittee stripped Pruitt’s provision from the bill, as well as another provision that would have notified public employees.

Frank Gibson, the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said removing the notice provisions “substantially improves the bill.”

“It would have added a lot of costs,” Gibson said of the notification provision. “It would have probably had the effect of probably closing records in some cases because public employees might not be able to recognize whether someone named in a public record was a public official or not so to be safe they just wouldn’t release the record if they didn’t know how to contact the person to notify them.”

The records bill is the first substantial positive change in 25 years to the state’s open records law, sunshine advocates say.

The House legislation gives governmental entities seven business days to make the record available, deny it and state why or tell the requestor how long it’s going to take to fulfill the request.

Currently, there is no time limit.

In addition, the bill creates an “office of open records counsel,” which will answer questions, provide information to the public and issue informal opinions regarding records.

The state Senate has already passed its open records bill, which has differences from the House’s version and is generally smiled upon more so by open government advocates.

One of the differences in the Senate’s legislation is it gives governmental entities five business days to respond.

The House’s open records bill is still in its committee system.