From First Amendment Coalition
We’re writing to sound alarms about California Assembly Bill 1821, which would have disastrous effects on transparency, accountability, and our democracy. Well, it’s crunchtime.
The bill, which was amended at the proverbial 11th hour in a transformation that a local watchdog group called “a virtual horror show of governmental non-transparency,” is set for a crucial committee hearing June 30. We need your help to stop it.
If passed, the bill would fundamentally alter the California Public Records Act, a vital sunshine law that ensures the people’s business be done in public view, making state and local governments less transparent and less responsive to the people they serve. Specifically, it would:
- Allow government agencies to charge hefty fees for public records
- Give local governments the authority to deem requests “not properly requested” and therefore invalid
- Allow local governments even more time to delay their responses
- Empower government agencies to sue members of the public if they feel a request was made with “malicious intent,” which seems left to the interpretation of whoever is holding the public records someone is asking to see
The bill is bad policy that’s the product of bad process. As Oaklandside’s reporting underscores, the bill was dramatically amended after members of the Assembly voted for it. And while the bill’s author referred to the amendments as “minor tweaks,” we agree with the San Jose Mercury News’ opinion editor’s assessment that they more closely resemble the Trump administration’s attacks on transparency.
The Orange County Register deemed it an “assault on access to public records,” calling on Sen. Tom Umberg, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee that will hear the bill next week, to “send AB 1821 to the bottom of the sea.”
We agree for all the reasons we offered in a recent interview with KQED, which is why we’ve been working around the clock with a diverse group of organizations from the ACLU to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to raise awareness of and oppose this bill that would weaken our fragile democracy.
And now, as the fateful hearing draws near, we are asking for your help. Umberg and his fellow members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have the power to stop this bill in its tracks.
Please call them and urge them to do so and help protect the transparency our democracy depends on.
Interesting this is a story here given the author is a state Dem. They don’t seem to catch a lot of flack in general. By all logic, there should be no change to our public servants blocking records requests. After all, who serves who? It would be also beneficial to know who else supported this crap.
This is a companion bill to AB-1785 (2024) also authored by Blanca Pacheco (ASM 64), that passed with a near unanimous vote in the assembly and senate. There were zero NO votes, and only 2 NVRs. Every single local legislator from our region voted for it, and the governor signed it. In fact, our local legislator Chris Ward (ASM 78) was co-author.
“The act prohibits a state or local agency from posting the home address or telephone number of any elected or appointed official on the internet without first obtaining the written permission of that individual.”
By making that an opt-in instead of an opt-out (which already existed), agencies handling public property records simply scrubbed 100% of ALL owner information, not just those of public officials. That data is still available on the back end so it does not improve privacy nor the safety of public officials as it claims to do. What it does do is severely limit public monitoring of a wide range of property related issues that require access to owner information, such as tracking trends in ownership and questionable property dealings by officials and others.
For us, in San Diego County, what used to be freely downloadable now requires traveling to the SANDAG offices regularly to purchase snapshots of property records and paying a fee.
Public information access is being turned into to pay-to-play and degraded by increased friction to access.
AB-1821 doubles-down on it.
This local administration, headed up by Gloria, consistently touts transparency in their government workings.
However, we continually see the opposite. In fact, one can claim that the only type of transparency we see is the utter lack of transparency.
We can change this pattern of ‘self-service unless we vote out the incumbents. Chris Ward is running for reelection. Maybe we need to vote for someone else. Chris is also supporting SB958 that Senator Weber-Pierson is authoring. Try to get any information from her; it’s like pulling teeth. That bill should not pass.
We need community activists that will be champions for their districts.
Elect
Kristine Allesio for Supervisor and kick Monica Steppe to the curb.
We need a city council with fresh ideas that will coalesce with the sole champion for San Diegans, Raul Campillo.
We must elect:
Richard Bailey – District 2
Martha Abraham – District 4
Mark Powello – District 6
Nicole Crosby who is running for D2-CC, works for the city attorney’s office and is being supported by the MEA. Do you believe that she will get our city’s increasing deficit under control? Dream on! She is part of the system that will not cater to her district.
Henry Foster who is running for reelection to D4CC, has been awol when it comes to community issues like Radio Tower. Martha has helped champion the community’s effort.
Kent Lee who wants to get reelected to D6CC has voted in lock step with Todd Gloria’s agenda. Now that he is running for reelection, he has tried to soften his allegiance. He took credit for negotiating a stop-gap proposal of 1 year to bring back funding for the San Diego Arts. But if he does get reelected, what will happen next year. He will have 4 years to continue his self-serving ways.
Let’s get centrists and community activists elected to coalesce with Raul and we can stop the downward spiral of our city.
Let’s vote person not party. We must have centrist ideas and common-sense governance.
Thanks Lisa, for your opinion. We respectfully but strongly disagree on your D2 recommendation. Bailey’s history is hardly one of being a centrist and as the former mayor of another small Republican city is hardly a local “community activist.” But then we agree with you to “coalesce with Raul {Campillo} and we can stop the downward spiral of our city.”
Boy, tough luck for Raul receiving the political kiss of death that is the Lisa Mortensen endorsement. We haven’t even gotten to 2027 yet and he’s already lost!