After public outcry, Utah governor calls session to repeal bill that would weaken records law

UPDATE, March 28: The law has been repealed.

Citing "a loss of public confidence," Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, left, reversed himself and said today he is calling the Legislature into special session Friday to repeal "the controversial bill restricting access to many government records," Paul Koepp of The Deseret News reports. "House Republicans said they plan to repeal the bill," Koepp writes, but Republicans who run the Senate seemed miffed.

The bill would exempt electronic records from the state open-records law and "allow officials to charge overhead and administrative cost — and possibly costly attorney's fees — for especially broad requests," Koepp notes. A poll taken for the newspaper and KSL-TV found 61 percent of Utah adults opposed to raising the fees, and 83 percent supporting "disclosure of elected officials' text messages on public business." (Read more) For more background, click here.