Commentary: This California bill is so bad it has me agreeing with a Trump Republican

This bill, he warned, is a meat ax.

“I don’t discount that there are abusive requests, and that there are requests that really are a burden on government agencies, but the law right now has ways for government agencies to address that,” he pointed out. “Once these laws go into place, they’re going to be hard to roll back.”

It could “fundamentally change” our access to public records, he said.

Johnson, Pacheco’s chief of staff, told me that faced with all these unintended consequences, the Assembly member is going to ask for the amendments to be removed, and for the bill to progress as it was written when it passed the Assembly. That could happen as early as next week, when the bill with the new provisions is scheduled to come up again in a Senate committee for debate.

Reverting to the bill the Assembly voted on would be better, but slowing down public records is in government’s best interests, not the people’s. The bill does nothing to address the problems it seeks to fix, but stretches out the time officials have to simply tell a requester if any records do exist — never mind delivering them.

So even back to its watered-down form, the bill remains a meat ax for a scalpel problem, chopping up transparency with good intentions.

More to Read

Insights

L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.

The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.

Ideas expressed in the piece

• The column contends that Assembly Bill 1821 would significantly undermine Californians’ right to know by slowing responses to public records requests, adding legal hurdles, and making it easier for governments to delay or deny disclosure, a concern echoed by transparency advocates who say the bill would fundamentally weaken the California Public Records Act and frustrate constitutional access rights[2][6][10].
• The piece suggests that late-added Senate amendments transformed a previously “watered-down” measure—mainly extending response times—into a bill filled with loopholes and vague language that gives agencies broad discretion to label requests as “malicious” or “commercial,” thereby enabling them to drag requesters into court and discourage inquiries through cost and delay[2][4][6].
• The article argues that forcing requesters to justify why they want records in order to avoid being treated as commercial operators or bad-faith actors would invert the principle that public records belong to the public, and would invite officials to treat perceived critics or political opponents differently, a risk noted by open-government organizations warning that agencies could weaponize these provisions against disfavored requesters[6][8][10].
• The column contends that even the bill’s carve-out aimed at protecting journalists is poorly drafted and could leave freelancers, student reporters, and nontraditional media more vulnerable to fees and litigation, aligning with concerns from press-freedom advocates that the bill would chill watchdog reporting and push some journalists away from filing records requests at all[2][3][10].
• The piece suggests that existing law already gives agencies tools to manage truly burdensome or abusive requests, and that AB 1821 functions as a “meat ax” where a “scalpel” is needed, warning that once such restrictions and fee structures are embedded in statute, they will be difficult to roll back and could permanently narrow public access to information about government conduct[3][6][10].
• The column contends that even if the author of AB 1821 now seeks to strip out the most controversial amendments, the core idea of slowing down responses and expanding agency discretion still serves government interests over the public’s, mirroring critics’ broader argument that the bill responds to bureaucratic frustration rather than to any demonstrated crisis in transparency[2][4][6].

Different views on the topic

• Supporters of AB 1821 argue that cities, counties, and state agencies are facing a growing deluge of voluminous and complex records requests, including repetitive or bad-faith filings, which they say strain already-limited staff and budgets and divert resources from core public services; they view the bill as a necessary modernization of the records law to manage this workload more sustainably[1][4][9].
• Proponents contend that the bill’s provisions allowing agencies to identify “commercial” or large-scale data requests and to recover some of the cost of staff time spent searching, reviewing, and redacting records are aimed at curbing exploitation of public databases by for-profit data brokers and AI-driven companies, not at ordinary citizens or journalists seeking accountability documents[4][7][9].
• Backers of the legislation emphasize that public records access would remain intact for most requesters, arguing that clearer rules, extended but defined timelines, and the ability to involve courts when dealing with particularly burdensome or abusive demands would create a more orderly, predictable process that still honors transparency while preventing operational paralysis for smaller agencies[1][4][5][9].
• Supporters point to cases in which officials say a small number of individuals or organizations have flooded agencies with sprawling records demands, sometimes numbering in the thousands of pages, and argue that AB 1821 would give governments a measured way to respond—through cost recovery and judicial review—rather than simply delaying or ignoring requests as happens under current practice[4][7][9].
• Those favoring the bill also frame it as a tool to protect privacy and limit the mass harvesting of sensitive personal information from public records, asserting that new fee structures and commercial-use distinctions could discourage businesses from building background-check sites or data products that republish information in ways many residents find intrusive or harmful[1][4][9].