Iowa Supreme Court sides with reporters against Gov. Reynolds in Open Records case

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – The Iowa Supreme Court docket denied an enchantment from Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds to dismiss a lawsuit claiming her workplace systematically ignored Iowa’s Open Data legislation and hid public info in the course of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The Iowa Freedom of Info Council, of which KCRG-TV9 is a member, together with the Iowa Capitol Dispatch and Bleeding Heartland sued the Governor’s Workplace in December 2021, citing a number of data requests that went unanswered concerning Iowa’s COVID-19 response. In some circumstances, requests went unanswered for 18 months. The lawsuit seeks an order for the Governor’s Workplace to adjust to Iowa’s Open Data legislation in addition to court docket prices and attorneys charges.

A month after the lawsuit was filed, the Governor’s Workplace responded to all excellent requests and claimed that rendered the lawsuit moot and argued there isn’t any timeliness requirement in Iowa’s Open Data legislation. It additionally claimed that the Governor’s Workplace particularly isn’t beholden to creating well timed responses to open data requests.

The Supreme Court docket rejected that argument, permitting the lawsuit towards the Governor’s Workplace for violating the state’s Open Data legislation to proceed.

“In brief, the Governor believes that the “reasonableness of her response time” can’t be litigated with out violating our structure,” the Supreme Court docket ruling states. “We disagree.”

The Court docket states timeliness is a think about responding to open data requests to satisfy the acknowledged function of the legislation for to “encourage the ‘free and open examination of public data.’”

The ruling additionally states the Governor’s Workplace has not clearly fulfilled all the requests. A number of had been denied or redacted and, due to this fact, open to a authorized problem on whether or not the denial or redaction is authorized.

The lawsuit now reverts again to the district court docket the place a trial date has not been set.

Gov. Reynolds launched an announcement Friday in response to the Iowa Supreme Court docket’s opinion:

“The preliminary outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic consumed each facet of our each day lives, and accordingly my workplace shifted its total focus to assist Iowans navigate that tough interval. Throughout that point, there was an unprecedented variety of open data requests and lots of of these went unfulfilled for a interval. Whereas we disagree that this lawsuit ought to proceed, my workplace has eradicated the backlog of open data requests and is dedicated to upholding our duty to answer any new requests in a well timed method.”

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