Va. Access Law Gets Good Marks

A preliminary study of open-government laws gives Virginia’s FOIA relatively high marks.

The study, by the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project at the University of Florida, gave high ratings to Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, Florida, Missouri and Rhode Island, plus the District of Columbia.

States overall are doing a poor job of ensuring their citizens have access to public records and residents find some roadblocks even in the states considered to be the most open, the study shows.

Unlike Virginia, many states have not updated their laws to reflect computerization of records and many have no laws on how soon an agency must release records.

Some states even place restrictions on the number of records that can be requested and some will seal an entire record rather than simply black out confidential material it contains, said Bill Chamberlin, director of the project.

“Most states have not paid a lot of attention to what they can do to make it easy for citizens to obtain records,” Chamberlin said.

He and 11 other access experts have examined public records laws in all 50 states. The study is not yet complete.

“Virginia may have strong ratings, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have loopholes,” Frosty Landon said.

Landon, VCOG executive director, is participating in the national study.

A survey last year by Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Chicago-based Better Government Association gave Virginia’s open-records law a B-rating, fifth highest in the country.