For as long as I’ve been a journalist, which is a really long time, public entities have hated public records requests, even while claiming they don’t.

Ask your typical elected or hired official, from the governor to the animal control folks, and they’ll tell you transparency is vital and sunshine in government a key value.

Then turn in the most benign of public records requests — access to a calendar, for example — and prepare for weeks of delays and excuses. Want emails or financial records or, heaven forbid, anything from the police? Months or even years may pass before a single page is delivered, no joke.

That’s why I am deeply concerned about a bill winding its way through the California Legislature that would definitely slow down public records requests and likely make them more difficult and expensive. At its worst, it could push people into costly court battles just for having the audacity to ask for information.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 1821, is authored by Democratic Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, whose district includes Norwalk, Downey and Bell, where legendary scandals are Example 1 of why public records matter.

Pacheco’s office told me Wednesday that the troubles with the bill are far from what Pacheco set out to do.

“It was never the author’s intention to take away people’s rights to a [Public Records Act] request,” said her chief of staff, Nikki Johnson.

Johnson said the bill was meant to curtail malicious records requests, which do happen, where a citizen goes after copious amounts of records just to be a jerk and cost the government time and money.

It was also meant to address the growing problem of artificial intelligence and other for-profit businesses requesting thousands of records with the intent of using the information to create money-making products — think of sites that already sell publicly available personal information as “background checks.”

I believe Johnson on the good intentions of the bill in addressing those real if nebulous difficulties, but you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

The bill passed through the Assembly recently with ease, largely because most of its problematic portions (I’ll get to those in a minute) were removed — though not all. Even in a watered-down form, which basically gave government more time to answer requests, I found myself in the unlikely position of agreeing with conservative Republican Assemblymember and Trump supporter Carl DeMaio of San Diego, who offered some of the only opposition from elected leaders during the Assembly vote.

“We cannot police the public’s right to know, and we want to err on the side of transparency in how government agencies operate,” DeMaio said.

Amen, brother.

But the Democratic-controlled Assembly erred on the side of secrecy and slowdown instead, and the measure sailed to the Senate, where seemingly out of the blue, a bunch of new provisions were added that fill it with loopholes, vague language and tons of room for abuse.

David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the bill as written now was “comprehensively bad for transparency and therefore for government accountability.”

Sean McMorris, transparency, ethics and accountability program manager for the advocacy organization California Common Cause, put it even more forcefully. He pointed out that “public records are the public’s records.”

“They’re not owned by the government,” he said. But this bill would shift that paradigm and make the public “prove why you need them.”

“It’s going to chill people who want to make requests, and it’s going to complicate the process, and it’s just wrong,” McMorris said.

In its new form, the bill basically allows government entities to decide if they feel a public records request is malicious or for commercial gain. If they do, they can petition a court to intervene — potentially sparking both legal costs and new fees associated with fulfilling the request.

It would also, Snyder said, force a requester to explain why they wanted the records — something California law has repeatedly avoided because it gives power to government to treat those it perceives as enemies differently.

In this age of fairness and reason, it’s hard to imagine a government official misusing power to keep secrets, but I’m told it happens. That makes it all the more crucial that people not be forced to explain why they want information, or if they will use it to, say, expose corruption — be it wrongdoing by a single individual or the entire system.

“I have little doubt that some agencies will use that provision to overburden requesters that they view as political opponents, requesters that they view as just a hassle, requesters that ask for things the government doesn’t want to disclose,” Snyder said. “They can bring the requester into court, and at a minimum, slow down the process, and probably more likely get the requester to simply withdraw.”

As written, the bill also gives a shoddy carve-out meant to protect journalists, but which in reality could be used to curtail requests from freelancers, student journalists and more.

McMorris said access to public records is a “moral issue,” and fixing any problems with the current law requires “a scalpel, not a meat ax.”

This bill, he warned, is a meat ax.

“I don’t discount that there are abusive requests, and that there are requests that really are a burden on government agencies, but the law right now has ways for government agencies to address that,” he pointed out. “Once these laws go into place, they’re going to be hard to roll back.”

It could “fundamentally change” our access to public records, he said.

Johnson, Pacheco’s chief of staff, told me that faced with all these unintended consequences, the Assembly member is going to ask for the amendments to be removed, and for the bill to progress as it was written when it passed the Assembly. That could happen as early as next week, when the bill with the new provisions is scheduled to come up again in a Senate committee for debate.

Reverting to the bill the Assembly voted on would be better, but slowing down public records is in government’s best interests, not the people’s. The bill does nothing to address the problems it seeks to fix, but stretches out the time officials have to simply tell a requester if any records do exist — never mind delivering them.

So even back to its watered-down form, the bill remains a meat ax for a scalpel problem, chopping up transparency with good intentions.

Former President Joe Biden appeared to briefly seek directions before exiting the stage after delivering remarks at a Democratic gala Saturday night, capping his speech with an awkward onstage moment.

After delivering a roughly 10-minute keynote speech at the Maryland Democratic Party’s “Fight Back & Win Gala” near Baltimore, the 83-year-old paused onstage and looked toward the wings before pointing in two different directions, seemingly trying to determine where to exit. After receiving guidance, Biden turned and walked off the stage with his back to the audience.

Unlike several other speakers at the gala, who exited on the opposite side of the stage after their remarks, Biden left in a different direction.

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The moment came after Biden delivered one of his sharpest public critiques of President Donald Trump since leaving office. During his remarks, Biden defended his own administration’s record while accusing the Trump administration of corruption. He also took aim at what he described as Trump’s “vanity projects,” including renovations to the White House, changes at the Kennedy Center and the ongoing saga with the reflecting pool on the National Mall.

“Whoa, what a loser,” Biden said.

After pausing several times to cough throughout his remarks, Biden concluded with a call for Democrats to “fight back,” saying the country could overcome its challenges by acting together.

“Folks, I guarantee we can do this. And we will. We just remember who in the hell we are. We’re the United States of America,” Biden said. “There’s nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we act together. So let’s get up and fight back, God darn it.”

The latest onstage moment comes just days after another widely shared incident at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.

WATCH: BIDEN LEFT SEARCHING FOR FAMILY AFTER OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CENTER CEREMONY

The star-studded ceremony brought together former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, along with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris and other political leaders and entertainers. At the conclusion of the event, Biden remained onstage after others had exited before calling out, “Where’s my granddaughter?”

Former First Lady Jill Biden then returned to the stage, took his hand and guided him off.

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Biden has largely stayed out of the public eye since withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race after facing intense pressure from fellow Democrats to end his reelection bid.

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The former president has since made only occasional public appearances and recently disclosed that he is undergoing treatment for Stage 4 prostate cancer.

WASHINGTON — A spectacular economic upturn is on its way, President Trump promised Americans last week, galvanized in part by a deal brokered this month to end his war with Iran.

“Very soon you’ll be at $2.50 a gallon for gasoline,” Trump told a crowd Wednesday night on the National Mall. The next year, he said, “is set for an economic boom the likes of which no nation has ever seen before.”

Economists are skeptical. The effects of the war and other factors driving inflation are likely to stick around for months, experts say, presenting an ongoing challenge to American households — and to Trump’s party as it seeks to retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

The war’s end will not create “a complete snap-back,” said Patrick Harker, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“Markets are still cautious, and the infrastructure that’s been destroyed [in the Middle East] is going to take a while to re-create,” Harker said. “Inflation’s going to stay elevated for a while.”

Oil prices were dropping last week — falling to their prewar level Friday — and average gas prices fell by 7 cents per gallon over a week ago. But it will take significant time for oil shipping to ramp up through the Strait of Hormuz, infrastructure to be rebuilt and gas prices to drop, said Michael Negron, senior fellow for economic opportunity at the Center for American Progress.

“I would expect there to be a continued inching downward,” Negron said, but “we’re not going to just go back within weeks to $2.90 per gallon.”

That means the prices of gas and of other essentials aren’t likely to improve dramatically before the midterms, in which affordability has become a driving issue. It could heighten challenges for Republicans, who are defending their majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, as Democrats seek to leverage the issue to gain ground.

Positive messaging about the economy from Trump and other officials “doesn’t really resonate” with Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, said Gina Plata-Nino of the Food Research and Action Center, a national anti-hunger advocacy organization.

“When you’re still making the same amount of money but there’s less for you to be able to pay [for] your basic needs — gas is more expensive, food is more expensive — it doesn’t really add up,” she said.

A fruit stand on West 7th Street sells bananas for $2 per bunch.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

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Americans question the costs

The Iran war has cost the average American household between $775 and $1,300 so far in fuel and taxpayer costs, according to an analysis by Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

The national average gas price sat at $3.90 on Friday, according to AAA, and California’s average was $5.48 per gallon, down 13 cents from a week earlier.

The increase in oil prices has also affected diesel and fertilizer prices, creating a ripple effect through several sectors, including agriculture. Consumer prices rose 4.1% in May from a year earlier, putting the inflation gauge at a three-year high.

Trump has leaned on a bullish message about the economy, but he has largely dismissed Americans’ worries about affordability, calling it a “fake word” and a “hoax.” Last week, he undermined the first major progress by Congress on the issue, refusing to sign a bipartisan housing affordability bill after both chambers passed it.

President Donald Trump closes his eyes as Dr. Ben Carson, left, speaks during an event with the White House Religious Liberty Commission in the Oval Office on Friday.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

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Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating on the economy dropped to 33% last week in an NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll — his lowest ever for that poll and 3 points below former President Biden’s worst reading on the question during his term.

Nearly four-fifths of respondents said that gas prices present some sort of strain, with 34% categorizing it as a major strain and 44% calling it a minor strain. Half of respondents who said they were not vacationing this summer said cost was the reason.

And only 23% of Americans say the war was worth the costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted days after the Trump administration announced the framework agreement to end the conflict earlier this month.

“People [are] just feeling like they’re getting left behind,” Harker said. “That’s a very real, palpable feeling when you go out and talk to people. They’re worried.”

The president and his party need a midterms message that “real economic change” is coming, said Brian Reisinger, a rural policy analyst in Wisconsin and a former GOP strategist.

“It has to be substance behind the sell,” Reisinger said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) speaks to reporters after the weekly Senate policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Thune spoke on a meeting with President Trump on the Iran deal.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

U.S.-Iran talks on shaky ground

Trump’s boosters have hailed the Iran deal as a victory for the president. And Trump has justified the shock to gas prices as “worth it not to have a nuclear weapon” in Iran, though the war has not achieved the president’s stated aims, which included the elimination of its nuclear program.

“President Trump was clear all along that there would be short-term, temporary disruptions to energy markets, and that oil and gas prices will quickly fall as soon as the Iran situation is resolved,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Friday.

How rapidly the conflict will be resolved is not yet clear. The U.S.-Iran negotiations were on shaky ground by week’s end, with each country offering diametrically opposed messaging on the status of key points of negotiation.

Analysts say much of the increase in traffic through the strait has been driven by the return of Iranian oil to global markets. Trump agreed in the controversial deal with Iran to lift sanctions on Iranian oil, allowing Tehran to resume trading its most valuable export and breaking with decades of U.S. policy.

The unpredictability of the talks is another factor keeping energy companies, shippers and insurers cautious for now, Negron said.

“Everything is to be negotiated in the next nearly two months,” he said. “It is natural to expect there to be additional risk priced into each barrel of oil, into the insurance people are paying, just because of the volatility and uncertainty of where we are.”