North Carolina Democrats are pushing to restore public access to General Assembly records, challenging Republican-led restrictions from 2023 that limited transparency in state government.
House Bill 322 seeks to restore public access to General Assembly records in North Carolina, repealing previous restrictions introduced without public debate. Pushed by Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, the bill proposes repealing Section 27.7 of the 2023 state budget, which centers around document confidentiality.
“It’s good government to provide access to public records,” Harrison told the Carolina Journal. “We work for the people, and we’re paid by the people. Our feeling is that this belongs to the people, these records, so they should be available.”
The legislation coincides with Sunshine Week, a time dedicated to highlighting the importance of government transparency.
Changes to public record laws were hidden within the 2023 budget, including giving each lawmaker the authority to destroy their own records in Section 27.9. The move stirred a coalition of news and public organizations to pen a public letter to members of the General Assembly expressing their deep concern over recent changes to the state’s public records laws.
While public transparency oftentimes garners bipartisan approval, Harrison told the Carolina Journal that she doesn’t expect the bill to move forward.
“I don’t expect it will move because clearly eliminating the public records requirement was led by the leadership and done in a way that there wasn’t even debate because it was just slipped into the budget,” she explained. “So I’m not optimistic, but I do believe we have at least one Republican ally.”
Harrison pointed out the critical role public records have historically played in holding government officials accountable, referencing past scandals. She explained how public records have previously played a role in redistricting, the scandal of former Democrat House Speaker Jim Black, and other instances where public funds were misused to benefit individuals connected to the state legislature.
“I just feel like public records are very important to one, maintain, and two, to have access to individuals who are seeking to find out how a law was created or what might be going on behind the scenes,” she said. “That’s important to the development of policy.”
The transparency bill also aims to amend campaign finance law changes that Republicans pushed through last year in House Bill 237.
While the bill addresses growing concerns over transparency, Harrison acknowledged the challenges posed by the volume of public records requests. She added that the legislative building has been overloaded with public records requests, which has caused fatigue.
Rep. Jake Johnson, R-Polk, mentioned a similar idea during an interview last week with the John Locke Foundation, pointing to concerns for whistleblowers. He said that issues can arise when staff can’t talk freely with legislators for fear that their words may be publicized, which could create internal transparency issues.
“I think this was getting us a lot more in line with what the federal Congress does,” said Johnson. “I think it became a real issue when things were being requested between staff, like myself and my staff, document requests where we were looking into document requests, things like that, that in other branches of government that would be extremely confidential.”