IL Senate Seeks to Restrict FOIA Watchdogs

A bill that has already passed the Illinois House (HB3769) is now in the IL Senate. It seeks to make the requesting of FOIA (Freedom of Information) more cumbersome for the requestor. Here is the overview from the Citizen Advocacy Center:

The voluminous request provisions:

• May be utilized by the public body if more than 5 individual requests for more than 5 different categories of records, or a combination of requests asking for public records from 5 different categories in a 20-day period;
• Extend the timeline by which the public body must correspond with the requester;
• May result in the public body calling the (amended) voluminous request as “unduly burdensome” anyhow (NB: why not just use the unduly burdensome provision from the get-go?)
• Contradict the FOIA provision that allows requesters to INSPECT original documents (an issue decided by an Illinois appellate court in DesPain vs. City of Collinsville), because the bill allows the public body to point to postings of records or information on its website as a sufficient response to the FOIA request-WITHOUT certifying that the online copy is a “true and accurate” copy of the original.

If you are interested in voicing your opinion on this legislation the Capitol switchboard is 217-782-2000. If you don’t know who your State Senator is you can look it up here.

House Recorded Vote

House Republicans who voted to make transparency harder:

1. Patty Bellock
2. Rich Brauer
3. Tom Cross
4. Tom Demmer
5. Jim Durkin
6. Mike Fortner
7. David Harris
8. Kay Hatcher
9. Michael McAuliffe
10. Don Moffit
11. Sandy Pihos
12. Dennis Reboletti
13. Ron Sandack
14. Darlene Senger
15. Kieth Sommer
16. Ed Sullivan, Jr.