Heath Haussamen
A new law requires government agencies to hand over public records in an electronic form if they exist in that form. It’s a small step toward increased transparency and accessibility, but an important step nonetheless.
Gov. Susana Martinez signed the bill into law Friday. It was sponsored by Sen. Steve Fischmann, D-Mesilla Park, and Rep. Eleanor Chavez, D-Albuquerque.
The new law, which takes effect July 1, was a response to some government agencies not wanting to provide digitized copies of documents. Currently, government agencies only have to make public records available for inspection in their office.
That means if you live in Las Cruces or Farmington or Raton and want to inspect records held by a government agency in Santa Fe, and that agency wants to make it more difficult for you to access the documents, it can require that you drive to Santa Fe to view paper copies, rather than making arrangements to provide you with digital copies.
I’ve encountered this problem in the past. The administration of former Land Commissioner Pat Lyons told me, in response to one request, that I could inspect documents only in their office in Santa Fe. The office was not willing to help me review or obtain them any other way.
The new law doesn’t completely take away government agencies’ ability to make life difficult for people who want to access public records. If the records don’t exist in an electronic form already, they still won’t have to provide them to you that way.
But if an office does have digitized copies of records, as of July 1 the agency will have to provide them that way if that’s what you want.
That should make public records cheaper. Government agencies are allowed to charge only for the actual cost of copying documents, not time spent looking for records or anything else. If a document is already digitized and you want it sent to you via e-mail, the cost should be nothing.
If you want the document mailed to you on a disc, the costs can include postage and the purchase of the disc – still minimal compared to the current charges for large records requests consisting of hundreds or thousands of pages.
The new law is another step into the 21st Century for government in New Mexico, and it’s a win for advocates of transparency and accessibility. Thanks to Fischmann and Chavez for pushing this legislation, and thanks to Martinez for signing it.