August 21, 2023 - The Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) reports Consumer Watchdog, a California nonprofit organization that advocates for taxpayer and consumer interests, has submitted a draft ballot initiative to the Attorney General for Title and Summary, presumably poised for the consideration by voters on the November 2024 ballot. The so-called “Government Transparency Act” would considerably amend the California Public Records Act (CPRA) and would impose significant costs on state and local agencies to comply.  

To summarize, the measure changes the process for responding to, maintaining, and managing public records and requests for public records, as follows: 

• Establishes extensive standards to ensure that government agencies conduct thorough searches for public records and disclose in writing their efforts to comply with the law.  
• Requires that public records are maintained for at least five years.
• Requires public agencies to respond to public records requests within 30 calendar days unless extraordinary circumstances exist.  
• Requires public agencies to automatically post a listing of certain public records online, including contracts with vendors and contractors, in a conspicuous manner.  
• Allows the public to bring legal actions to address past violations of the law and to prevent threatened future actions that would undermine access to public records. 
• Limits a number of existing court decisions on the CPRA, including ensuring that members of the public who sue public agencies to enforce the CPRA have broad discovery access, ensuring that public records include documents maintained by private contractors relating to their work on behalf of public agencies, ensuring that communications exchanged between government employees and entities outside of government are available to the public, and limiting public agencies’ use of the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product doctrine to limit access to public records.
• Limits reverse-CPRA lawsuits.
• Requires public agencies to publish annual reports that provide information about CPRA requests and how the public agency has responded. 
• Requires members of the Legislature to disclose lobbying meetings, fundraising events, and public events; requires that records related to legislators’ misconduct be provided to the public upon request; requires that all legislative records be retained for a minimum of five years. 

Sponsors of the initiative have been bullish in the press about the likelihood of the measure’s eventual success. However, the Attorney General must prepare a Title and Summary and the Legislative Analyst’s Office must prepare a fiscal analysis prior to signature-gathering before voters can consider the measure. Stay tuned for more information in the months ahead on this measure and others that will likely be considered on the November 2024 ballot. 

 RCRC thanks our partners at HBE Advocacy for providing this summary.

ABOUT RURAL COUNTY REPRESENTATIVES OF CALIFORNIA (RCRC)
The Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) is a thirty-seven member county strong service organization that champions policies on behalf of California’s rural counties. RCRC is dedicated to representing the collective unique interests of its membership, providing legislative and regulatory representation at the State and Federal levels, and providing responsible services for its members to enhance and protect the quality of life in rural California counties. To learn more about RCRC, visit rcrcnet.org and follow @RuralCounties on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Source: RCRC