EDITORIAL: Bill would limit public’s ability to obtain records

You wouldn’t trust a fox to guard the henhouse. You shouldn’t trust a government official who wants to limit access to public records either.

This month, Assemblyman Ken Gray, a Republican from Dayton, presented on Assembly Bill 152. Nevada’s public records law generally requires state and local governments to provide records they have in their possession. The law also allows state and local governments to dispose of records according to their retention policies.

Let’s say a city’s policy is to eliminate emails that are more than five years old. Even with that policy in place, the entity may decide not to delete all of those records. Currently, if someone asks for older emails that the city still has, the government agency is required to produce them.

AB152 would change that. If a record could have been disposed of — even if it hasn’t been — this bill would exempt state and local entities from having to produce it when asked.

“This actually really created some angst in me bringing this bill because I believe in full transparency of our government,” Mr. Gray testified before the Assembly Government Affairs Committee.

If you are bringing a bill that limits the public’s access to records, you don’t believe in full transparency of the government.

Mr. Gray then made an even more implausible claim. “This will actually increase transparency and increase the efficiency of government by allowing them to focus on the real records requests for citizens that truly need it and not having them going chasing rabbits down holes that they may never catch,” he said.

That makes as much sense as Joe Biden at a June debate. Those supposed fishing expeditions are often reporters or watchdog groups pursuing a tip. The records provide evidence to either back up or dismiss the claim.

This bill would open a Pandora’s box of mischief because government agencies generally set their own retention policies. This would allow them to effectively undermine the public records law for anything in their possession. Unsurprisingly, a host of lobbyists representing various government entities supported the bill.

“The law says public records will remain available to all of us,” Ben Lipman, the Review-Journal’s senior vice president for legal and employment affairs, said. “This is an effort to allow government entities to decide on their own how long public records will remain open to the public.”

The public owns public records. Public employees work for the public. Their duties include providing access to those records. Many public employees act as if that is an obstacle to their “real” work. It isn’t.

AB152 is a flawed proposal that deserves an ignoble demise.