April 20, 2006

Whether or not the proposed "Sunshine In Government Improvement Act of 2006" (HB2495) becomes law, paying the legal costs for those denied access to public records by offending government agencies could far out weigh the proposed penalties.

Courts can make government agencies that violate open-record laws pay for all legal costs, the state's attorney general said in an opinion released yesterday.

While there are no penalties written into the state's open-record laws, Attorney General Paul Summers wrote that courts may require agencies to pay the legal fees when officials "knew records were public and willfully refused to disclose them."
[Agencies may be liable if records held - Tennessean - 04-18-06]

On Tuesday, the Senate State & Local Committee recommended Senate Bill 2471, the companion to HB2495, for passage on a 9-0 vote. As Frank Gibson, Executive Director for the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG), tells me, "It could be on the floor of the full Senate as early as Monday night."