A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll from mid-April is bad news for legislators who tried to rush through changes to the state’s Open Public Records Act. The bill was pulled on March 15 within days of a possible full legislative vote after intense opposition surfaced from public advocates, citizen groups and journalists.
Opponents of the bill argued that the changes would weaken the ability of the public to have access to government documents. The opposition coalesced quickly and accused the bill’s supporters of seeking to lower the level of government transparency.
The April poll showed 81% of the public against the proposed changes. Those saying the state should keep the OPRA system as it is included a broad spectrum of the population.
There was no partisan divide, as 85% of Republicans said to leave the system alone, compared with 79% of Independents and 78% of Democrats.
Education level did not matter either. Some 83% with a college degree and 79% without one supported the current OPRA system. Nor was age a significant factor, as more than 80% of those age 31 and up supported the present law. There was a slight drop, to 76% supporting, for those age 30 and under.
The sponsors of the bill that would have altered the OPRA rules were Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) and Assemblyman Joe Danielson (D-Middlesex). Sarlo said he expected to bring the bill back with amendments in April.
Supporters of the new bill said that OPRA is being abused, especially by commercial entities. They argue that the bill is a response to requests from municipalities that feel overburdened by the current system.
Those who testified in Trenton on the bill were overwhelmingly against the changes. They saw the burden on municipalities being used as a convenient excuse for making changes that weaken transparency.
The proposed bill would have made more than 20 changes to the OPRA law. Many of the changes had to do with privacy concerns and limiting the abuse of the access rules by data brokers and commercial enterprises.
But other changes had nothing to do with those issues. Among other things, the bill would have allowed greater use of redacting and potentially expand the time frame within which OPRA requests must be answered.
It also would have created less certainty that those who file suit in Superior Court due to what they feel is an illegal denial of information would get their legal fees paid by the government agency if it lost the case. In addition, the bill would have removed certain types of documents from OPRA requests, including draft documents.
