Introduction
First, sorry this Beehiv is later today than intended, but I am having an acute medical issue + a Beehiv formatting issue I am addressing currently. Should be OK.
With that, this is going to be a long Beehiv (blog + newsletter) with at least the longest table of contents so far. But we have three big topics this time around.
The first is a 2026 Legislative Session Scorecard. We need to score this critical legislative session and flip the script on some things.
The second is an idea in having a statewide public records portal that came from the testimony around HB 2661, Rep. Skylar Rude’s attempt to study harming the Public Records Act. Additionally, I intend to make writing about Utah’s public records solutions the first intentional multi-part coverage story of this Beehiv.
The third is a look at a growing storm fronted by Bill 9 threatening to assail our neighbour British Columbia’s Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. Just a reminder that the grass is normally not greener on the other side of the fence… and the Bill 9 situation will also require multi-part coverage. So with that, table of contents is as follows:
Table of Contents
2026 Legislative Session Scorecard
Well folks, worried about the risk of being considered press after recent events, I was hesitant in sharing some of these thoughts. But since the Washington State Standard has their winners & losers scorecard, now I will create mine.
Best Open Government Bill of 2026
Let’s start with some positivity. The title of “Best Open Government Bill to Become Law” falls to SB 6268, a bill intended to ensure special education records are kept. As The Seattle Times’ Shauna Sowersby - a journalist who’s already won the Washington Coalition for Open Government Bunting Award and been malinged by the likes of Ari Hoffmanj & Brandi Kruse - reported on February 14:
The records are known as Special Education Community Complaint decisions and are used by parents of students with disabilities to advocate for better services. Parents rely on past complaint decisions to see how similar issues were handled, sometimes using them to inform their interactions with schools or to create individualized education programs — legally mandated plans — for students with disabilities. Attorneys also rely on the decisions to advocate for clients.
Sen. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, sponsored the legislation after seeing The Times report, which noted how OSPI quietly changed the retention policy without public input, concerning parents and disability advocates.
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Harris said the bill “strengthens transparency and ensures that families and educators can gain information” through an online portal that shows how past disputes were resolved.
Also worth noting that citizen-advocate Julie Gunter was key to getting this legislation across the finish line. As someone with special needs, deeply appreciate the work Gunter & Sen. Harris did here.
Winners at Creating Crises: Ari Hoffman, Brandi Kruse and Jonathan Choe
As regular readers know, I have decided to focus some of my coverage on the WA House Press Pass Fiasco. This “saga” - thank you Carleen Johnson of The Center Square - has taken a new turn since the last update.
Controversy Over Journalistic Legal Representation
Namely, there is somehow now a controversy in Washington conservative/right wing media about media outlets funding their journalists having legal representation after being named defendants in a lawsuit. You can watch Hoffman-Kruse-Choe’s attorney discuss this professionally below:
Also, Ari Hoffman has continued to blog his own trial - against my past advice - and wrote on the KVI website what he considers the meat of the matter with my emphasis:
The question isn’t whether someone prefers traditional reporting over commentary, or legacy outlets over talk radio and independent media. The media landscape includes all of those. The real question is whether a small group of established insiders gets to decide who qualifies as a journalist and who doesn’t, then box out the competition.
If access to government spaces can be limited based on vague standards about who is “independent,” and if news organizations connected to that process are financially supporting legal efforts to defend those decisions, then we have a serious problem.
The problem is allowing commentators access to the press table at the very front of the State House of Representatives means allowing anybody who can write worth a damn about state politics access to that table. Ditto the wings of the House, where legislators are in transit to/from their floor desks and their offices?
My Assessment of ‘What’s Next’
I guess to Ari, Brandi and Jonathan - and their supporters - some of the defense should not have sought legal representation independent of the State Government of Washington when being sued. That is not fair or right to want to deny fellow citizens legal representation. Frankly there is going to have to be a painful conversation about future CCA guidelines stating that press pass holders in good standing need to show respect - e.g. no personal attacks or plagerism - to other press pass holders.
Ergo, I offer this Sanna Marin quote from her book Hope in Action… "You shouldn’t create a crisis if you don’t know how to walk out of it." We are very much in a saga with no apparent exit strategy in sight short of capitulation or years of litigation, IMHO.
Winning at Decorum: The House of Representatives’ Clerks Office + Capitol Correspondents Association
Clearly deserving of recognition, the Washington State House of Representatives’ Clerks Office and the Capitol Correspondents Association held the line the past two years. As the court found after denying the Temporary Restraining Order request:
Plaintiffs ignore that credentials are issued on a person-by-person basis, and “an individual journalist is not ineligible for a House floor press pass because someone else working at their news organization testified on a bill, provided the news organization exists for the purpose of disseminating news (not lobbying).”
There are serious questions about whether one or a combination of the three are lobbyists. One should be referred to the Public Disclosure Commission’s lobbying webpage. But at least our institutions held and enforced to their best of their ability the rules and standards on the books. At least one Federal District Court Judge agreed.
Biggest Winner: State Legislative Republicans
You must be thinking… “WHAT? How did Washington State Republicans come out a winner in this legislative session?” Especially after this post on X claiming “Worst. Legislative Session. Ever”:
Well, let’s see how State Republicans didn’t do as bad as advertised…
The Democrats’ Income Tax is almost certain to meet former Washington State Attorney General Rob “Sir Rob” McKenna, who is arguably the best lawyer in the State of Washington. “Sir Rob” within minutes of being sworn in as Attorney General created the Open Government Ombudsman office. Odds are likely the income tax will be cut down in the courts and if need be, on the ballot.
State Legislative Republicans with few exceptions have NOTHING significant to hang their heads about. Many bills tracked by me were frozen because legislators chose an artificial calendar and ending the fundraising freeze over having a special session - bills that wanted to add exemptions and stymie transparency. But as we will read later, a very important bill was frozen also due to State Legislative Democrat selfishness.
Plus as will be discussed later on, other places like British Columbia do not have an opposition that can apply truly effective brakes to stop questionable if not bad legislation that will fundamentally change Freedom of Information/public records access. Washington State Democrats should explain why ending the fundraising freeze is more important than legislating, IMHO.
Biggest Loser: Public Servant Safety
Rarely will I argue for hiding information from the public, but HB 2333 by Rep. Liz Berry should have passed this year. Sadly, as per testimony to the legislature, HB 2333 could have provided protection to not just state legislators, but local elected officials and county prosecutors needing protection from bullies, stalkers and such. But even in a weakened state, the legislation never got on the State Senate Floor’s Order of Consideration before floor of opposite chamber cut-off.
Testimony by one county prosecutor to the Senate was extremely clear as to the need,
“As we all know, women are disproportionately targeted by bad actors. ... While some people may not directly relate to being threatened, I guarantee you that there are female colleagues of yours who have been.”
Others, including the author, raised the concern. But I surmise it’s more important to State Legislative Democrats to conclude on time to fundraise versus keeping public servants safe and our democracy more inclusive. Let’s also remember also the marathon debate over state legislative Democrats’ income tax scheme was in the House of Representatives.
Not that I think State Republicans have all the answers. One of my political sheroes will always be… “My President, Not Donald Trump”. But I am increasingly bipartisan in my hopefully constructive criticism the older I get.
A Data Center for Public Records?
One item that sadly has not been sufficently covered is the suggestion made during the legislative session that perhaps the State Government of Washington should stand up a data center to process public records requests for local government as a public records portal. Now we all do know that data centers trigger Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) folks, and for good reason as The Lincoln Institute - among many - have documented.
Photo by Kevin Ache on Unsplash
Why A Public Records Portal Like Utah?
However, as an increasing percentage of public records are electronic and pressure grows on governments to go paperless - I’m suggesting using some of the… 586 acres of Hanford Nuclear Reservation wasteland mostly unused for public good for hosting a data center full of backup copies of Washingtonian public records + trained public records officers + computer nerds to process them? There is ample water and hydropower - thanks Columbia River - to support hosting the public records, guarding the public records server farms and having aritificial intelligence (AI) speed up searches.
Having the State of Washington employ the public records officers would sure take the burden off of many local governments. In fact, this idea came from testimony that Roland Thompson made to the Washington State Legislature on HB 2661 mentioning how Utah is consolidating public records by creating a public records portal to give relief to Utah’s local governments.
Thompson also offered to the committee:
“If you want to have small governments stay small governments, you're going to have to provide a tremendous amount of support for them.”
But More Than “Support” Needed…
But more than support for small government is needed. Recently, Jamie Nixon thundered on episode 16 of his Public Records Officer Podcast the following insights:
The government under-invests in record systems, allows conditions where major failures can happen. And then when people use the law to investigate those failures, some officials act like those people are the stressor on the system. No. The stressor is corrosive leadership, a lack of deterrent-centered enforcement.
The stressor is a political class giving lip service to transparency with no meaningful budgetary or structural commitment to it. The stressor is a culture that still treats records work like a nuisance instead of a pillar of democratic governance. And I also have to say this because I mean it.
. . .
If you're a public official angry about the burden of records compliance, your complaint should be upstairs to agency leadership, to lawmakers, to the people who never seem to find the money for modern retention tools, proper staffing, or serious training... Not at the citizens trying to use the law in the way that it was intended to be used.
So perhaps having a data center staffed by trained professionals who work 4-10s or 5-8s in a secure facility is the solution to getting public records out the door in a more timely manner - and less burdensome to school districts, city halls, public transit benefit areas, county courthouses, etcetera.
The next part of coverage on this issue at a future date will focus on the inner workings of Utah’s Public Records Portal. Stay tuned… and subscribe if you haven’t already. Your e-mails are safe with me, but I use Beehiv so we can get these missives in our e-mail boxes.
Is British Columbia Dimming the FOI Lights? Part 1
Author Taken & Edited Photo of the British Columbia Legislature Lights Dimming
Introductory Note
Covering British Columbia’s Bill 9 will also be a multi-part series due to length concerns, but will tenaciously review British Columbia's legislative Bill 9. However, I need time to reach out to my British Columbia contacts about this bill that the opposition seemingly cannot effectively fillibuster or freeze plus review public debate on the matter.
Perhaps the Lights Dim With Bill 9
This legislative session in British Columbia (BC), our neighbour to the north, the neighbour who in 1992 passed on an all-party basis their Freedom of Information (FOI) law see the governing British Columbia New Democratic Party (BCNDP) act more like Not a Democratic Party with their Bill 9. Growing concerns have been raised about the BCNDP’s Bill 9 - not to be confused with the Canadian Parliament’s Bill C9 - from media - from many from opposition Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). Additionally, the BC law firm Lawson Lundell felt obligated to blog about Bill 9. In their blog, the firm noted,
“Currently, public bodies must answer applicants within 30 days, with possible extensions. If the request is frivolous, repetitive, or would take too much time and resources, the Privacy Commissioner can let the public body ignore it. Bill 9 would expand these powers, giving the Privacy Commissioner authority to allow bodies to ignore requests that are abusive or that would slow down operations.”
The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA) is extremely concerned, laying down a series of questions about what Bill 9 is intended to do. In an initial response statement was this truth:
“Access delays are often a symptom of recordkeeping failures. You cannot fix systemic information management problems by weakening public access rights.”
Additionally, FIPA issued an initial statement that noted Bill 9 if made law would be:
Replacing the duty to respond “without delay” with “without unreasonable delay.”
Granting the heads of public bodies the authority to decide, in their opinion, what constitutes “enough detail” and “reasonable amount of time” when determining whether a request is valid.
Expanding grounds to disregard requests as “abusive,” or “malicious,” and now allow for requests to be disregarded if they would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the Government of British Columbia – a departure from the usual focus on individual public bodies with potentially sweeping implications.
Expanding ministerial powers over centralized data-sharing through a new “connected services provider.”
But Bill 9 arguably is intended to address abusive requestors to remove their abuse of FOI to accelerate FOI production. Additionally, as per a February 26 statement from the BC Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner, the Bill allows for collaboration with other Canadian offices and the gathering of Freedom of Information data.
Is Bill 9 About Incivility vs. Access?
In an incredible turn of events, The Tyee - a reader-supported news outlet leaning more on the progressive side - let Commissioner Michael Harvey give his side on things. Commissioner Harvey shared among other things that;
“An acute number of requestors, “will seek ‘any and all’ records, no matter how many records they are, they won’t narrow their requests, and many of them, a small number, but some of them are becoming very combative with public bodies, even with our own offices. This has led public bodies to feel like they’re under siege. This is what I’m really concerned about… There’s significant operational issues with our FOI system that have been recognized by the government, that have been recognized by other public bodies and that we recognize ourselves.”
. . .
“This small number of people that consume a disproportional amount of resources of the FOI system are not only challenging to deal with in their own right, but they impinge upon the right of access of other people that aren’t doing that. And my job is to defend the right of access of everyone.”
Commissioner Harvey recently gave a speech + Q&A about the state of BC FOI. However, being a YouTube Live - sorry no embed possible on Beehiv. A future Beehiv will address both Commissioner Harvey’s remarks and Commissioner Harvey’s role in administering public records in great detail.
In Conclusion
Ultimately, I hope readers will take away that many of British Columbia’s issues are also ours in Washington State’s. Washingtonians need to be grateful that we do have the “Olympia Fillibuster” so the opposition can do more than just write and speak pretty prose - but actually, genuinely block bad legislation with the de facto 100% assent and permission of the Democratic Party majority.
Author Photo of the Washington State Legislative Building
The Last Word
With that, I will let WashCOG President Mike Fancher have the last word,
In recent years, a culture change leaning away from access has seemed to make things worse. We spend a lot of time battling seemingly well-intentioned legislation that would significantly restrict access to important government information. In the session that ended last week, we tracked more than 40 bills, most of which would have created new exemptions.
With the public’s help, most of the bad bills failed to pass. Perhaps just as importantly, several other bills were amended to lessen their potential harm to transparency. In the end, we were able to be neutral on those bills as amended. Resistance does work when people pay attention.
The session also started with a handful of bills that would improve public access. Only one passed.
As Lawrence O’Donnell says on his MS NOW “The Last Word” program…
WashCOG President Mike Fancher has the last word 3,100 words in :-).