The Massachusetts Public Records Law, once one of the weakest in the country, is significantly stronger due to the work by state Rep. Peter Kocot of Northampton and Attorney General Maura Healey.
Kocot is one of the chief architects of the modernized law that was adopted this year, and Healey vows to enforce it.
They were together Dec. 2 at a meeting of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association in Boston, where Kocot received an award for his role in reforming the state law, and Healey delivered the keynote address about the media’s important role in reporting accurately about policies and issues.
Kocot worked for four years on the first significant reform of the public records law since it was adopted in 1973. He co-chaired the conference committee that crafted legislation signed by Gov. Charlie Baker in June that is tailored to today’s electronic record-keeping with more uniform and stricter standards for state agencies and municipalities.
The publishers group gave its first Open Government Award to Kocot and state Sen. Joan B. Lovely, D-Salem, the other co-chair of the conference committee that produced the reforms. They include requiring state and local agencies to assign records access officers to handle requests, and in most cases to respond to requests within 10 days. The new law also limits fees that may be charged to produce the records.
And Massachusetts, like 47 other states, now allows judges to award attorneys fees to people who successfully sue for the release of public records — a change that should discourage public officials from frivolously denying information requests.
Healey, in her nearly two years as attorney general, has followed through on a pledge to more aggressively enforce the law when records are ruled public. For the first time in recent years, the attorney general’s office last month filed a lawsuit seeking to force the release of records that have been ruled public by the secretary of state’s office. In this case, the suit asks a judge to force the district attorneys in Plymouth and Worcester counties and the Cape and Islands to give lists of cases they prosecuted in response to a request from the Boston Globe.
“Government accountability and transparency are key values of our office,” a spokeswoman for Healey told the Globe. “Our office believes that the best way to provide further clarity on this issue is through the court process.”
Timely access to public records is an essential democratic principle in helping the public and the press understand how government works and keeping it honest.
We join with the publishers association in saluting Kocot for his work to bring a 40-year-old law in line with the demands of the 21st century. And we applaud Healey’s aggressive enforcement of that law and hope that remains a priority for her office.