Hawaii Lawmakers Pass Not-So-Open Records Bill

By /
Today was not a good day for good government advocates. A bill weakening the power of Hawaii’s open records agency passed out of conference committee this afternoon and is headed to the full Legislature for a final floor vote.

Senate Bill 2858 allows the Office of Informations to be taken to court if a government agency doesn’t like what OIP has to say about granting the public access to a record. 

Not surprisingly, OIP, which introduced the bill, hailed its passage.

The bill’s detractors included more than a dozen community, media and open-government organizations who said the measure undermines the intent of lawmakers who wrote Hawaii’s open records law more than 20 years ago.

What it means to support Civil Beat.

Supporting Civil Beat means you’re investing in a newsroom that can devote months to investigate corruption. It means we can cover vulnerable, overlooked communities because those stories matter. And, it means we serve you. And only you.

Donate today and help sustain the kind of journalism Hawaiʻi cannot afford to lose.

Donate

About the Author