State Bill of the Month — June 2024: North Carolina HB 1075

HB 1075

Sponsors: Reps. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), Diamond Staton Williams (D-Cabarrus), Lindsey Prather (D-Buncombe), and Tim Longest (D-Wake)

Background:

Public records laws have been an integral mechanism for holding elected officials accountable since the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was ratified in 1967. Since then, each state has enacted and defined their own public records laws. They also define how those records are taken, retained, and presented to the public. State public records laws vary based on factors such as compliance for certain governing bodies, penalties for noncooperation, exemptions, fees, and response times.

HB 1075 comes as a response to last year’s North Carolina state budget that was passed in October 2023. That law included a provision that re-categorized legislative documents as confidential. This allowed lawmakers and bureaucrats to arbitrarily deny the public access to any record. Further, it gave them the ability to “retain, destroy, sell, loan, or otherwise dispose of” records from the legislature.[1]

State and municipal governments have been successfully undermining public records laws since their inception.[2]Recently, the City of Vinland in New Jersey denied in full an open-records request by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance Foundation (TPAF) and New Jersey taxpayers advocacy group Jersey First. The excuse given by city officials included a hesitancy to reveal deliberative “governmental decisions and policies”, trade secrets and potential “security measures and surveillance techniques.”[3]

States need to increase transparency for their constituents. Public records laws should allow the public to hold government officials more accountable for their decisions and how they spend taxpayer money.

Rolling back public access to legislative records keeps constituents in the dark and prevents them from engaging in the political process effectively. The North Carolina General Assembly is funded by the state’s taxpayers. Bethany Torstenson of the John Locke Foundation stated, “Hiding public documents from the taxpayers to whom they’re accountable and, in some cases, even destroying these records incentivizes lawmakers not to prioritize government transparency at a most basic level.”[4]

HB 1075:

Thankfully, HB 1075 (North Carolina) would require public officials and state agencies to allow public records to be recorded, retained, and shared with the public. It would also prevent future laws from being crafted to limit public access to records. It also narrows the number of exceptions to these principles to cases where there exists a “convincing public interest.” HB 1075 was recently referred to the House Committee on Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House.

HB 1075 would bring much needed transparency and accountability back to the state of North Carolina. Taxpayers have a right to know what their public servants are doing with their hard-earned taxpayer dollars. This is why TPA is proud to make HB 1075, as introduced by Reps. Harrison, Staton-Williams, Prather, and Longest, its State Bill of the Month for June 2024. We urge the legislature to pass this bill expeditiously and – in that instance – for Governor Cooper to sign it into law.

[1] https://www.courthousenews.com/north-carolina-democrats-push-for-transparency-in-challenge-to-public-records-law/

[2] https://reason.com/2024/03/12/without-more-accountability-sunshine-laws-are-toothless/

[3] https://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/broadband/vineland-nj-refuses-to-release-feasibility-study/

[4] https://www.johnlocke.org/privacy-or-secrecy/