The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee voted on Thursday — mostly along party lines — to approve a highly controversial bill (S2930) intended to reform New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act. Fierce defenders of public records access butted heads with concerned mayors and municipal clerks over the proposed measure.
“The bill remains deeply flawed,” said media attorney Thomas Cafferty. “Many records that are currently available to the public will be cloaked in secrecy, or otherwise made more difficult to obtain, if the bill is enacted.”
“We’re not trying to destroy democracy,” argued Deptford Mayor Paul Medany. “We’re trying to help protect the people who service democracy.”
Critics claim that state Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), the bill’s sponsor, is rushing the measure through. It’s his second attempt to fast-track the bill, after the first one got pulled following a firestorm of protest. In Sarlo’s view, OPRA’s an out-of-date law that’s turned been taken advantage of by commercial data miners and lawyers.
“I think you’ll hear today, it’s about attorney fees, and about a cottage industry of folks making money off the taxpayers of NJ,” Sarlo said. “I’m not sure how to resolve this but we’ve done our best.”
The amended version requires requests include more specific information, with names and dates, and shifts the cost of attorney fees. It also lets agencies to sue people if their requests “substantially impair” government operations. An overflow crowd heard mayors, clerks and lobbyists urge lawmakers to vote “yes.”
Progressive groups, media lawyers and unions argued that OPRA as it stands is crucial, noting it helped break open the Bridgegate case by uncovering the critical “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email.
The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee cleared the bill by a vote of 10-3. Dissenting were state Sens. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex), Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) and Michael Testa (R-Cumberland).
“At some point, we’re long overdue for OPRA reform for a lot of the reasons we heard from people backing the bill today,” O’Scanlon said. “I just don’t think this bill is there yet.”
The Assembly Budget Committee will hear testimony on this bill Friday. If it’s approved, it heads for a possible vote in the full Legislature this Monday, with support from Republican leadership in the Senate.
