Bill would change Utah public records law, aims to limit ‘vexatious requests’
By Jacob Scholl, KSL.com Jan 31, 2022
A proposed bill would change Utah records law and potentially make records requests more costly to the public.
HB96 would change the state's Government Records Access and Management Act, also known as GRAMA, to allow government entities to charge for all the time spent fulfilling a records request if the requester has filed a separate request in the 10 days prior. As of now, the initial 15 minutes of fulfilling a request cost nothing to the requester regardless of how many requests were filed in the previous days.
The bill, which is being sponsored by Rep. Dan Johnson, R-Logan, was presented to the House Government Operations Committee on Monday and was later approved by the committee in a 10-1 vote.
Cache County Clerk/Auditor Jess Bradfield spoke on behalf of the Utah Association of County Clerks and the Utah Association of Counties, a group he said fully supports the bill.
Bradfield said the proposed bill would not limit the potential number of requests that can be filed, but it would put a limit on the number of requests that would be granted the fee waiver for 15 minutes of work. He claimed the bill "protects the right of an individual to petition the government for information."
"Unfortunately, vexatious and serial requesters have learned that they're allowed to submit an unlimited number of small requests each day to an entity," Bradfield told the committee. "Such actions throw a stick in the spokes of government offices and are most detrimental to those who request information for the public benefit such as news agencies or individuals who may be impacted by a policy or program and require information in a timely manner."
