Fulfilling a Right-to-Know request can sometimes be tedious and time-consuming. From time to time, the person requesting the public records never arrives to pick them up at town hall.
With AI, some requests seek massive data sets, like detailed information on every property in town.
Sen. William Gannon wants to give towns, cities and school districts a reprieve. He sponsored Senate Bill 626 to limit the Right-to-Know law — and the access to public records it affords — only to New Hampshire residents.
The change would make it so only permanent residents of the state would be able to request and receive access to government records. Out-of-state media organizations would be exempt from the residency requirement.
“This bill continues to provide transparency and accountability,” said Gannon, the prime sponsor of the bill, in a statement. “It maintains access to governmental records by those that are governed, NH citizen and entities and allows all media to have the same access as a NH citizen.”
Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, opposes the bill. Many people own property in New Hampshire as a secondary home and contribute to the state economy, but would be barred from making public records requests.
Changing the law would give governing bodies more subjective control over approving public records requests, Bissonnette said.
“What HB 626 is, is a restriction our Right-to-Know law,” he said. “It does narrow that statute, and from our vantage point, what we should be doing is making the government more transparent and more accountable, not less transparent.”
Henniker gets about a dozen requests per year, according to Town Administrator Diane Kendall. She said a lot of them come from vendors asking things that are out of the scope for the law, such as accounts payable or bid packages.
Henniker officials don’t send documents over email — requesters must come in-person to receive materials. Kendall said some requests aren’t fulfilled because out-of-state requesters don’t come in.
“It might cut down on some of the commercialization on the use of the Right-to-Know law,” she said.
Sarah Burke Cohen, a legislative advocate for the New Hampshire Municipal Association, said municipalities have been plagued by large requests from entities with no ties to the state.
The bill, Burke Cohen said, will not infringe on New Hampshire citizens’ rights to transparency in the state.
“The request is being sent to someone who has no ties to New Hampshire, who is not actually holding the government accountable, which is why 91-A has been set up and why the New Hampshire Constitution is written the way it is, for that transparency to be for those that are governed,” she said. “We are supposed to be holding our government accountable.”
Seven states have similar provisions to their public record laws. The Supreme Court upheld Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act in 2013 after two non-residents filed requests and, after being denied, filed a lawsuit accusing the state of violating the Privilege and Immunities Clause, where states must treat people from other states equally.
The Center for Public Integrity conducted a nationwide investigation in 2015 into state government and accountability and found New Hampshire ranked 34th in overall state integrity and 49th in public access to information.
Bissonnette said the Granite State has made strides in the past six years on transparency. He specifically pointed to police conduct and how information that was deemed secret can now be viewed under the public interest balance test.
“This is why, when we see efforts to pull that back, that is something that should concern all of us, especially when we see restrictions that give the municipal body the power to decide whether they should comply or not,” he said.