REVIEW: Apr 10 Hot Topics
Judi Hayes | Published on 4/15/2024
The Unshine State: A Hazy Forecast for Florida’s Sunshine Law
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
By Judi Hayes
The forecast for the foreseeable future may be clear, sunny and warm, but sunglasses aren’t necessary because of the haze and cloud cover obscuring Florida’s Sunshine Law. The 1967 law governing access to public records and meetings is almost unrecognizable in 2024, with more than 1,200 exemptions and local and state officials frequently refusing to comply with it. Florida’s citizens are left in the shade without access to public meetings and records. The League partnered with the Florida First Amendment Foundation to shed some light on the topic.
Moderator Beth Kassab, a Central Florida native and journalist, is the editor of the Winter Park Voice and spent 20 years writing a popular column and covering politics, education, courts, business, and local government for the Orlando Sentinel. Panelists included Leslie Postal, the K-12 education reporter for the Orlando Sentinel who has recently covered the school voucher program; Mike DeForest, an investigator reporter from WKMG News 6, and Bobby Block, the executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation and former managing editor of Florida Today.
The most recent legislative session resulted in 18 new exemptions to the Sunshine Law and weakening of First Amendment protections around social media for teens. On the brighter side, however, the attempted expansion of defamation laws failed to pass. Mike DeForest spoke about how Gov. Ron DeSantis has obfuscated and delayed public records requests, intervening to review records before they’re produced and in effect denying public access. Sometimes access delayed is access denied if Floridians don’t have access to the information they need to vote or make decisions. The cost of getting copies of records can soar to exorbitant sums as well, preventing reasonable access to what are really OUR records.
Leslie Postal discussed a public records request about the governor’s decision to withhold school voucher money from a few private schools in the greater Orlando area over perceived ties with Chinese investors — and the governor’s reluctance to provide transparency when questioned. She has yet to receive any of the requested documents, months after the request. As Bobby Block pointed out, most of requests come from citizens and not journalists. Ninety percent of calls to FFAF’s hotline are from citizens. His organization publishes a manual for citizens to draft public
records requests designed to produce responsive requests without resulting in exorbitant fees in order to traverse the most efficient path to transparency in government.
Mike DeForest discussed the Washington Post lawsuit involving the governor’s travel records, now shielded from public view and retroactively hidden. The state Legislature approved the change in law that helped the governor to hide his travel records, his visitor logs and other activities that should be accessible to the public. The panelists were asked what citizens can do to ensure broad access to public records. Be persistent, said DeForest. Leslie Postal pointed to citizen advocacy groups like the Florida Freedom to Read Project, which doggedly tracks challenges to library books statewide. Bobby Block said he considers the First Amendment Foundation the “Defenders of the Sunshine,” and they are assisting in drafting new legislation to create an ombudsman to oversee public records requests and the responses from government. That would streamline a process where the standard of a “reasonable period of time” is too vague to be enforced.
The First Amendment Foundation has resources to help citizens access public records. First Amendment Foundation – flfaf (floridafaf.org)
Join us next month on May 8 when we address the hottest of topics — abortion and the Yes on Amendment 4 campaign.