Massachusetts Senate set to take up public records overhaul next Thursday

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State Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, center, announces the Senate version of Beacon Hill's attempt to reform the Massachusetts public records law for the first time in 40 years.

(Gintautas Dumcius / MassLive.com)

BOSTON - State senators on Thursday advanced a bill updating Massachusetts public records law - which hasn't seen an overhaul since 1973 -- and they expect to vote on the legislation next week.

Government watchdog groups, like Common Cause Massachusetts, hailed the bill as stronger than the state House version, which passed in November.

Senators said the Senate bill (S. 2120) improves and simplifies the current process for requesting public records, which Carol Rose, the executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, described as a "flashlight without working batteries."

"This bill would significantly enhance the ability of citizens and journalists to obtain records on a timely basis at a reasonable cost and to enforce their rights when they are wrongfully denied access to public records," Bob Ambrogi, executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, said in a statement.

Under the proposed Senate bill, state agencies or municipalities would have 15 days to complete a request for public records. They would be authorized to ask for an additional time if necessary.

Electronic records should be required to be provided in an electronic and searchable format, instead of paper, to better enable searches by requestors of the records.

The bill also requires courts to award attorneys' fees to plaintiffs when an agency or a municipality wrongly denies public records, providing "some teeth" to the state public records law, said state Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Winchester.

The bill states that if a court decides that a government agency or municipality hasn't acted in good faith on the request, the entity could get hit with damages up to $5,000.

According to senators, the Senate bill has a number of provisions, some of which are similar to what the House has proposed:

  • Agencies or municipalities would be required to designate at least one public records access office. That person does not necessarily need to be a new employee. New responsibilities can be added for an existing public employee like a city town or clerk.

  • They would also be required to post online common public records.

  • If an agency or municipality wants to make redactions to documents before turning them over, but the redactions aren't required by law, they need to seek approval from the state supervisor of records.

The bill does not place the governor or the state Legislature under the public records law. Governors, both Democrats and Republicans, have pointed to a 1997 Supreme Judicial Court ruling to claim they are exempt from public records requests.

If senators sign off on their proposal next Thursday, the legislation goes to a committee of House and Senate lawmakers tasked with negotiating a compromise bill behind closed doors. If a compromise bill emerges, lawmakers sent it to the governor's desk for his approval.

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