Should Illinois be worried about new FOIA proposals?

In January, Illinois passed a law that improved its FOIA, which needed improvements after allegations that secrecy was the rule in Illinois, openness the exception. The most conspicuous case was the University of Illinois not releasing information to the Chicago Tribune, making the Tribune sue the university for the information. Supported by the Attorney General, the law made it so that governments had 5 days to respond to a request and would penalize those that failed to do so.

But the improvements did not come without a fight with some law makers creating a weaker alternative to the new law. That effort has begun again: State Senator John Millner is sponsoring a plan that would significantly weaken the new FOIA in Illinois, according to critics. His proposal would:

-Broaden protections against disclosing personnel and disciplinary information.
-Cut down public access to law enforcement records if the information could hurt another department’s investigation
-Relieve government bodies from having to pay legal fees for successful lawsuits against them.

A proposal introduced by another state senator, Senator William Haine, would exempt law enforcement personnel’s performance evaluations from disclosure, as well. Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn have already approved exempting teacher evaluations from disclosure.

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which was was strongly vocal about its support for the new law, said it’s too soon to change it.

But the new FOIA has critics on the House side, too. State Representative Sidney Mathias is working with the Illinois Municipal League, which opposed last year’s changes to access laws and is a taxpayer-funded lobbying association, to change requirements that may be “too burdensome,” especially requiring government bodies to reply to requests within five business days. He also would consider doing away with a provision that requires local governments to pay attorney fees if someone sues to get information and a court rules that information should be turned over, a similarity to Millner’s proposed changes.

According to Representative Mathias, its in citizens’ interest to place limits on the requirements of government to meet this law. “Who ultimately pays that? It’s the residents. So there’s got to be reasonable limitations on these requests, also.”

Still, it’s one thing to have frivolous spending going on in Illinois, and another thing to have spending that is justifiable. As far as protecting investigation and police officers, this is also an important priority. However, the presumption should be openness, and a denial of information must be justified. While a realistic law that doesn’t overly burden officials is important, the emphasis should be on the citizens and on providing information in a way that is beneficial to them, not on making life easy for public officials.