RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — North Carolina lawmakers have been exempted from public records requests, through an item in the North Carolina budget which took effect Monday at midnight and was three months late.
Buried in the 625-page document allocating $30 billion in funding are provisions that shield legislators from public records requests, even once they’ve left office.
Section 27.7 of the 2023 Appropriations Act (HB 259) categorizes documents prepared by legislative employees as confidential, rather than public records, and their existence “may not be revealed” without the consent of the legislator.
The budget also names legislators “custodian of documents” to discern if a record is a public record or not, and to choose to retain or destroy it. They also cannot be required to reveal any documents or information requests made while they were in office.
“Legislatures need to be held accountable,” Mecklenburg County Representative Laura Budd, a first-term Democrat, said. “And the way you hold them accountable is you make sure there are open records, not just with whom they’re communicating, but about what they’re communicating.
“As elected officials, we are accountable to the public and part of that accountability is who we’re speaking with and what we’re speaking about. The public has every right to know.”
The public records exemption has been met with backlash from North Carolina media and public organizations, as well as the John Locke Foundation, who said that “legislators can — and should — quickly correct the public records language in the budget” during the 2024 short session.
The North Carolina Press Association — as well as local newspapers — drafted a letter to the general assembly yesterday, writing that “this amendment poses a significant threat to the principles of open government, accountability, and transparency vital to a functioning democracy.”
Concerns about accountability were prominent, as the amendment grants legislators the ability to destroy records formerly subject to requests, including records that would have been necessary for government accountability.
“The budget provision applies to state lawmakers, but public records are critical to governmental transparency at all levels,” wrote The Carolina Journal, who also signed the letter.
Phil Lucey, executive director of the North Carolina Press Association and one of the authors of the letter to the Assembly, said that he believes the provisions will have a “chilling” effect on reporting.
“I think it will erode public trust in elected officials and will have a serious impact on democracy — at least at the state level, with this change and a few other changes that have been made by legislators in this state budget, from giving themselves the option to destroy public records, to making all work on behalf of redrawing districts secret and not accessible to the public.”
“I think it’s going to pose a challenge for journalists trying to cover important and essential community news, in regards to anything that is happening at the general assembly,” Lucey said. “And I think it will be near impossible for members of the public to be able to make any requests and find out the work that’s being done on behalf of the officials that they elected and sent to Raleigh.”
For Budd, a large concern with the public records exceptions is the erasure of the ability to keep public officials accountable.
“We are elected officials, we are hired to do a job and it’s not just simply about being transparent, it’s about preventing corruption, and shedding light on what people do,” she said.
“Democracy dies in darkness, there’s something to be said about that. And by trying to keep from the public’s eyes — especially the press, a free press has eyes — what legislatures are doing with their time and with their taxpayer’s money, that is extraordinarily problematic. If I’m going to vote and make a decision on something I think that my records ought to be open to those who vote for me, or rely upon the decisions I make. I think they are entitled to do that. That’s my responsibility to them.”
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