> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://dispatch.themesbykyle.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Inside the Quiet Campaign to Rewrite the Rules on Public Records - URL: https://dispatch.themesbykyle.com/inside-the-quiet-campaign-to-rewrite-the-rules-on-public-records/ - Published: 2026-11-13T11:22:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-13T16:34:42.000Z - Description: A coalition of state officials is working behind closed doors to narrow what the public can ask for. Here is what the drafts say. - Author: Amara Okafor - Tags: Politics, Courts & Law, #popular Officials in at least nine states have spent the past year quietly drafting changes to their public records laws, according to documents reviewed by Dispatch. The proposals would let agencies charge more for searches, refuse “burdensome” requests and shield internal deliberations from disclosure. The drafts were circulated among attorneys general and agency counsel under the banner of “modernisation”. None was published for comment. Two were shared with us by officials who said they were uncomfortable with how little scrutiny the changes had received. This story is based on twelve documents, including three full drafts, a slide deck and a series of internal emails, and on interviews with eleven officials in seven states. Most asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak. ## What the drafts would change The most significant proposal would allow an agency to deny a request if answering it required more than eight hours of staff time. Under current law in most states, there is no such cap. Journalists say the change would make large, data-heavy requests close to impossible. A second provision would exempt “predecisional” communications, a category that critics say is broad enough to cover almost any email an official sends before a policy is finalised. A third would let agencies recover the cost of legal review from the person asking. > “Transparency laws were written for people, not for institutions that would prefer not to be asked,” said Renata Cole, a records-access attorney who reviewed the drafts. “A time cap is an invitation to say no.” ![A hearing room in a state capitol. None of the drafts has yet been discussed in one.](https://dispatch.themesbykyle.com/content/images/2026/11/records_wide.jpg) A hearing room in a state capitol. None of the drafts has yet been discussed in one. Photo: Michael D Beckwith / Wikimedia Commons ## How the drafts were written The language traces back to a working group of agency counsel that has met four times since January. The meetings were closed. Calendar entries describe them as “records modernisation roundtables”, and no minutes have been published. A slide deck prepared for the group, which Dispatch has seen, advises members to “lead with efficiency, not restriction” and to “frame changes as protecting small agencies”. A speaker note on the final slide reads: “Avoid the word ‘exemption’ in public materials.” > A records law you have to pay a lawyer to use is not a records law. ## Officials defend the changes A spokesperson for the coalition said the goal was to protect small agencies from “abusive and repetitive” requests and to bring older statutes in line with modern record-keeping. “No one is trying to close the door on the public,” the spokesperson said. “We are trying to keep it from being used as a battering ram.” Some local officials agree there is a problem. A county clerk in a rural state, who supports parts of the proposal, described an office of two people that once received a request for every email sent over six years. “I am not against transparency,” she said. “I am against being unable to do anything else.” ## What the data show Open-government groups say the abuses described are rare. In the state with the most detailed data, fewer than one in two hundred requests were classed as vexatious last year. Dispatch reviewed request logs from 41 states and found that the median response time has already risen from 19 days to 34 over the past decade. Most requests do not come from professional litigants. Residents account for 62 percent, businesses for 21 percent and journalists for just 9 percent. Researchers who study the laws say that a time cap, if adopted, would fall hardest on the first group. 📄 How we got these documents: the drafts and slide deck were provided by officials in two states who believed the public should see them. Dispatch verified them against metadata and with a third source who attended the meetings. ## What happens next Several legislatures are expected to take up the proposals when sessions resume in January. Hearings are already scheduled in four states. Advocates are preparing to testify, and a coalition of newsrooms has asked the working group to publish its minutes. - Ask your legislator whether they have seen the draft language - Check whether your state’s hearings are announced in advance - File a request for the working group’s minutes (the irony is not lost on advocates) “The time to speak up is before a bill has a number,” Cole said. “After that, it is a vote count.”