From the Salisbury Post (7/18/10): The North Carolina Legislature made laudable headway in open government law as it closed out its annual session last week. The progress was not all it should have been, to be sure, but by North Carolina's mostly cloudy standards, it was a rare win for sunshine.
In its usual end-of-session flurry, the General Assembly enacted a reform that tilts the scale a bit more to the public when it comes to lawsuits over open government and allows a crack of sunshine in the state’s notoriously locked down law on public personnel files.
Legislators ratified the open government changes as part of a larger ethics reform bill that toughened campaign finance regulations in the wake of statewide corruption probes. An election year in which the public has a skeptical view of politicians was a prime opportunity to pass open government reforms. The General Assembly could have done more but the changes make for a good start on issues that state politicians have been reluctant to tackle.
The section that helps successful plaintiffs in open government lawsuits recovery attorney fees is not the full “automatic recovery” that the state’s media fought for but it’s improvement enough in this state to qualify as a victory. The provisions call for mediation as a first step in disputes over public records — a step that both sides could agree to waive under the law. After mediation, the law requires that government bodies found by the court to be in violation of open records law pay the plaintiff’s attorney fees. (Local or state boards or agencies that relied on previous court rulings or a state attorney general’s opinion could still avoid paying the plaintiff’s attorney fees.)