Social media thwarted Utah lawmakers' plans

Near the end of the legislative session, Utah lawmakers quickly pushed through an overhaul of Utah's open records laws. But barely 48 hours later, the legislation was recalled. What happened?

Pignanelli:"I fear three newspapers more than 100,000 bayonets." — Napoleon. The Tea Party Movement, The Scott Brown Senate election, rebellions in Tunisia and Egypt... the 2011 Utah State Legislature. These are recent examples of when 21st-century technologies, combined with traditional media, have irreversibly changed a political trajectory. (Yeah, this sounds overblown, but even LaVarr agrees.)

As a former lawmaker, I "feel the pain" legislators suffer when attempting to comply with the Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA) — which I cosponsored during my legislative career. At the end of each session, I sorted and packed all meaningful documents into a box — in anticipation of a GRAMA request that never happened. (I spent more time determining which freebies to take home.) Of course, today's officials have a 1,000-fold greater burden since GRAMA was established. They must worry about retaining e-mails, electronic documents, text messages, etc. Also, some journalists and bloggers are using GRAMA to demand access to thousands of records, often at great cost. The Capitol is reverberating with horror stories of "GRAMA abuse."

These are legitimate concerns ... which were not shared with the public before HB477 was revealed. As a lobbyist for the Utah Media Coalition/Utah Press Association, I can state there was no request to meet and resolve the issues beforehand. Indeed, the leaders of these organizations were surprised as to the extent of some GRAMA requests. There were smaller GRAMA scuffles in prior sessions, but the press and legislators always reached an accord.

By hard-wiring HB477 for passage in the last full week of the session, most Capitol Hill veteran politicos predicted the Legislature had achieved victory. Sure, those newspaper dinosaurs would scream and shout, but the public would not care about the nuances of some bizarre thing called GRAMA. (Even I was unsure as to shelf-life of the issue) No one predicted the outcome.

The 2011 Legislature deserves credit for fulfilling a hearty agenda: nationally recognized immigration reform, Medicaid cost controls, mission-based funding for higher education, public education reform, expanded accountability in state and local government. These accomplishments will be contrasted with the mistake to not make the GRAMA case to their constituents.