Reject HB 443
Nov 8th, 2007 by JamieB
At least in its current form, in which it has been amended to the point where it is unrecognizable as the bill originally offered by Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fayette), we urge Pennsylvania’s Representatives to vote against House Bill 443, and we urge their constituents to tell them to do so.
You may well ask how we can call for the rejection of a bill that “flips the presumption,” something we have been arguing for months is the critical change on which all else depends. The sad fact is that we are doing just that . . . because we think this bill creates such huge exemptions – all emails and all correspondence between public agencies and public officials, for example – that it flips the presumption in name only. We believe, in fact, that HB 443 represents worse law than the very bad law we have now.
We aren’t the only ones who don’t like where HB 443 appears to be heading:
“It’s a Mack Truck loophole,” said state Rep. William Gabig, (R-Cumberland) of the email exemption, noting that officials could use it to hide records in e-mail.
The e-mail exception is “a gigantic loophole” that eviscerates the bill’s impact, said Rep. Curt Schroder (R-Chester). “The whole e-mail thing, I don’t see it as really being any different than a document coming in, written in pen and ink on a piece of paper. We should treat those documents all the same and then judge them in the criteria in the bill as to whether they’re public or not.”
Rep. Glen Grell (R-Cumberland) called the process by which Rep. Mahoney’s bill was rewritten in the State Government Committee “disgraceful.”
And Rep. David J. Steil (R-Bucks), co-chairman of the Speaker’s Legislative Reform Commission, said, “My overall impression, when we got done, is there may be too many exceptions to what are public records. . . .There’s something wrong if everybody’s against it and only we like it.”
Looking ahead, perhaps the worse thing about this bill is that it sets up a horrible precedent – which is that decisions on public access will be based on the form of the communication, rather than its content. If it’s an email, no matter what the subject, it’s closed to public view. As we move increasingly toward a paperless world, the absurdity of this proposition is clear. We need substantive reform of a bad law, not a facade behind which people uninterested in reform can conduct business as usual.
Please vote no on House Bill 443.