A bill to make clear that records in South Dakota are public, unless the law says otherwise, is probably dead for this session, the bill's sponsor said after a House committee voted 7-6 against it, reports Terry Woster of The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls.
"Critics said the bill went too far and would not protect disclosure on private individuals and corporations, even though it included a ban on “unwarranted release' of information that would endanger the public or cause “irreparable harm to an individual,” writes intern Alanna Malone of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
The sponsor, Sen. Nancy Turbak Berry, D-Watertown, told Woster that she probably would not try to revive Senate Bill 189, which grew out of her service on a state task force and was supported by the South Dakota Newspaper Association -- but opposed by Gov. Mike Rounds. The Reporters Committee said South Dakota is the only state without a law presuming records are open.
"State law generally says records required by law to be kept are open. Numerous specific laws close different individual records or classes of records," Woster writes. But the task force "found that a vast number of records fall somewhere between those two areas. It also found that government officials have wide discretion to make decisions on whether to open or close records. The task force was unable to agree on a bill making substantive changes in open-records laws," so Berry filed the bill, which would have "put the burden on government to show why a document should be closed."
The committee did approve a bill that would "give citizens seeking government records a place to go if their requests are denied or if they are told the documents would cost a great deal to provide," Woster reports. Disputes would be settled by the state Office of Hearing Examiners. (Read more)
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