Government does not need another broad exemption to the Colorado Open Records Act.
What government does need is to be required to release documents and data in the usable digital formats in which the information already exists. That is a common-sense change to the existing CORA law that could make it incrementally better and more open.
Senate Bill 40 would do just that.
But Wednesday the bill was amended several times to tack on either unrelated CORA issues that will drag down an otherwise straightforward bill, or in one case to include a dangerous exemption that could be abused.
Attorney General Cynthia Coffman requested the bill be amended to allow records custodians to refuse to release “any records the inspection of which is reasonably likely to compromise the safety or security of any natural person.”
Let’s pause a moment to think about just how broadly that could be interpreted by a public official hoping not to release documents that make them look bad. If the documents were bad enough, an elected official could be the “natural person” and the danger could be the public outrage that would ensue from such documents being released.
Instead of adding that exemption, lawmakers should be clamoring to remove or narrowing a similar exemption for law enforcement (just not in this bill, please). The Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act allows law enforcement agencies to withhold police records if release would be “contrary to the public interest.”
The town of Olathe twice denied a mother’s request for records pertaining to her son’s 2015 death following a traffic stop, even though all pertaining investigations had been concluded. The town simply said it was contrary to public interest. The records were eventually released but only after an attorney and the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition got involved.
Now expand a similarly broad exemption to all of state government and you’ll get a sense of the flaws in the amendment to SB 40.
Coffman has reasonable concerns about releasing records with information about individuals who should be protected.
But it occurs to us that those potential weaknesses in CORA exist with or without SB 40 requiring the data to be released in a usable format.
Furthermore, those specific weaknesses can be addressed with targeted changes to CORA that actually protect people without harming the public’s access to information.
For example, Rep. Terri Carver, R-Colorado Springs, passed a bill two years ago allowing victims of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking to be excluded from public property and real estate transaction records.
Another amendment to SB 40 would subject Colorado’s judicial branch — which includes the state Public Defender’s office — to CORA. Currently the judicial branch is considered exempt and operates under its own open records rules.
There is merit to having that conversation. The Denver Post editorial board called for more transparency from the public defender’s office in 2015. But that politically fraught debate should not be in conjunction with the completely unrelated SB 40.
If there are specific databases that should be exempt from CORA, then let’s exempt them. But to be clear, those databases are still public records even if SB 40 fails. The only difference would be how the government entity would be required to provide them.
We hope the Senate strips both of those amendments from SB 40 and moves forward with this common-sense bill uninhibited by unrelated or overly broad issues.
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