Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed his first bill of this year’s legislative session, rejecting a bill that would have changed the state’s open records law.
“It would certainly be convenient for the Executive Branch to agree to weaken CORA, but as a representative for the people of Colorado, I support more, not less, openness and transparency,” the Democrat wrote in his Thursday veto letter, referring to the Colorado Open Records Act.
Senate Bill 25-77 was a bipartisan measure that would have extended the timeline that a records custodian has to respond to a CORA request, except for requests from journalists. It also would have given entities more time to respond to a request if they decided the request was for financial gain, like obtaining information on a large group of people in order to solicit business.
The bill was sponsored by Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, Sen. Janice Rich, a Grand Junction Republican, Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, and Rep. Michael Carter, an Aurora Democrat. Kipp and Soper ran a similar bill last year that died in a Senate committee.
“I was really hoping that he would decide not to veto it,” Kipp said. “I think it is a very fair bill that we worked for a couple years on in order to get it into a good place. We have several elements of the bill that are good for both requestees and for requesters, and I think it would make things easier.”
The bill passed on a 45-19 vote in the House and a 27-6 vote in the Senate, which would satisfy the two-thirds requirement to override a veto if the Legislature pursues one. The lawmaking session ends the first week of May.
Kipp said sponsors are having conversations about pursuing a veto override.
Polis took issue with allowing public officials to make those determinations on who the requester is and what their motives are.
“The bill leaves the custodian with far too much power to define who is and is not a member of the media, and what is and isn’t news,” he wrote. “For instance, a public official may deem a request from a media outlet focusing specifically on climate change as not meeting the statutory definitions of ‘newsperson’ or ‘mass medium’ given the perspective of some elected officials that climate change is categorically not news.”
The bill relied on existing definitions of “mass medium” and “newsperson” found in state statute related to courts and court procedures.
Polis also objected to the creation of different CORA response timelines for different types of requests, ranging from three days for journalists and 30 days for businesses seeking records for financial gain.
“A newsperson, a member of the public, and a person seeking financial gain may all request the same information and, under this bill, get access to that information on different timelines,” Polis wrote. “To ensure fairness and confidence in public transparency, all legitimate requests for public transparency under CORA should be treated equally under the law, without preference for some requesters over others.”
But to Kipp, the bill’s intention is for the government to not conduct “market research” for businesses on the same timeline and cost for others seeking public records.
The bill’s bipartisan group of sponsors and supporters had argued that the bill was intended to give public officials a reasonable amount of time to respond to an increasing volume of requests.
“People should be able to get information that they want to get. So what we’re mostly doing with this bill is trying to clarify the processes for requesters, and to give those public entities and records custodians just a little bit more time to fulfill those requests, because it’s become just an overwhelming burden,” Kipp said.
The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition’s advocacy committee had asked Polis earlier this month to veto the bill, arguing in a letter that it would create unnecessary barriers “for people seeking to gain a better understanding of state and local government activities in Colorado.”
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