Next week, the Pennsylvania Senate is scheduled to vote on SB 525 for the last time before sending it to the House for their consideration.
This bill would allow a state agency, a county, or a township to petition the Office of Open Records to get a person who often files Right-to-Know requests labeled as a “vexatious requester,” which means their requests are burdensome or annoying to the agency. If a person is found to be a vexatious requester, an order can be entered allowing the agency to ignore records requests from that person for up to a year.
At the very least, when an agency tries to label someone a vexatious requester, that person will have to go through a proceeding process similar to a court proceeding before a determination is made. Proceedings cost money, are time-consuming and burdensome, and are not something the average person knows how to manage.
SB 525 was advanced because local governments have a hard time responding to the volume of Right-to-Know requests they receive. They say it would be a way to relieve them of some of the “burdensome” work of tracking down records and documents. However, if this were the case, our state government could and should provide local governments with resources to increase their capacity to respond to all requests.
This bill is simply a way to limit the amount of information that citizens have and punish those who request it. It is alarming because it suggests that our government wants to keep information from us, but why? Without information, citizens will be in the dark about what goes on in their communities and why decisions are made, and they will have a harder time organizing against initiatives that could harm their families and friends.
