NJ Senate president says amended transparency reform bill could advance in April

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Work is underway on amendments to the controversial bill that would limit access to government data and documents in New Jersey.

State Senate President Nick Scutari told reporters Monday that he thinks by mid-April the Legislature will take up the bill with “mostly clarification amendments.” He said earlier in the day that the state Senate may reconvene on April 15 to handle some business.

The bill, which cleared committee in the state Senate but was held from consideration at last week’s Assembly Appropriations Committee meeting, has drawn significant criticism from good government and advocacy groups, which say it would gut New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act.

Scutari said he hears from people who comment on or criticize a bill before reading it and amendments themselves, so he recommends people do that and “then we’ll have a full-throated discussion of what we’re intending to do.” He went on to say “much of the criticism was unfounded and shows a lack of understanding in what was trying to be done.”

The Senate president also said the Legislature is “going to try” to make the amendments available for viewing before they are heard in committee.

“Those amendments are being worked on as we speak, and they’re bicameral and bipartisan, so both sides of the aisle and both houses are coming up with things that are going to satisfy both, and I think you’re going to see the bill overwhelmingly pass,” he said.

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What would the OPRA legislation have done?

Under the new bill, access to email and call logs, dog license information, email addresses and even digital calendars would be exempt. Requests for email would need to include a “specific subject matter” and “discrete and limited time period” as well as a specific person, as opposed to a title or government department.

The bill would also ban the release of metadata, which is the information about when an electronic file was created and who created it. Requests that an agency thinks could lead to “harassment” could be denied, and an official OPRA request form would need to be used. One of the most noted changes would be to the policy regarding attorney’s fees in the event of a lawsuit.

Requesters who win OPRA lawsuits “may” be entitled to legal fees if the public agency is found to have knowingly violated the law or unreasonably denied access.

The legislation was first enacted in 2002 and requires local, county and state government entities to provide the public with access to government records in New Jersey.

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Fierce opposition from advocates

The bill was met with hours of testimony in opposition during committee hearings in both chambers last week.

Both Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin said last fall that OPRA reform was being considered during the lame-duck legislative session, which ran from November to early January.

Gov. Phil Murphy would not comment on the specifics of pending legislation during a regular “Ask Governor Murphy” segment on WNYC last week but did say he thought OPRA needed to be tweaked, given the way that technology has changed in the years since it was implemented, and that he’s heard anecdotally about concerns regarding commercial use of the process.

“We are all in on transparency,” he said. “I would think if you get something that would address some of the things I just mentioned in a fair way that doesn’t undermine transparency, that’s something that I’m open-minded to … I haven’t seen anyone with nefarious behavior here. I think there are people who are legitimately trying to address some issues with the system, but we are all in on transparency most importantly. Period. Full stop.”

Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com