The governor signed into law today a bill that requires government agencies in New Mexico to accept requests for public records via e-mail and fax.
House Bill 598, sponsored by Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, will take effect in mid-June.
Cervantes’ bill came in response to New Mexico State University’s assertion in 2007 that records requests I filed weren’t valid because they were sent via e-mail. The attorney general considered the issue and said that, though his office and the vast majority of state agencies treat e-mail requests as valid, state law doesn’t explicitly require that they be treated as valid.
Currently, the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act requires response to “oral” and “written” requests for public records, but there’s no clear definition of what constitutes writing. Denying a request because it was sent electronically, and forcing someone to instead deliver the request in person or mail it, is one method some government agencies, including NMSU, have used to make it more difficult to access public records.
Cervantes’ bill clarifies that writing includes e-mail, fax and other electronic formats.