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Senate President Keith Faber
Keeping Ohio's
Government Open, Transparent and Easy to Access
Since the passage of Ohio’s first open records law in 1963, our state
legislature has gone to great lengths to open the doors of public
buildings to the taxpayers who want to take a closer look at the
activities and decisions that affect their daily lives. From meeting
minutes to official correspondence between elected officials, our
records are your records. Unfortunately, a costly and inefficient legal
process has effectively shut the door to many Ohioans who wish to
dispute when their request for public records is
denied.
This month, the Ohio Senate passed landmark legislation to establish a
more fair and cost-effective method of resolving public records
disputes.
After receiving a public records request, a public office must provide
you with the records so long as they are not confidential. Case in
point: If you want to find out how much your elected public officials
are being paid for their public service, you're entitled to receive
those records. If that public records request is denied for some
reason, you have the right to challenge the denial.
However, anyone wishing to challenge the denial of a public records
request must currently file a lawsuit called a "mandamus action" with
an Ohio court. If you’re not a lawyer, chances are you may not know
what a mandamus action is. Even if you do, you may struggle to hire an
attorney and afford expensive legal fees for the months or even years
it may take to resolve your case. The reality is that very few Ohioans
have the resources to compete with the government in a court of law, so
the current system tilts the balance away from average Ohioans in favor
of the government and its most wealthy and powerful citizens.
The irony of creating barriers to access when the issue being
considered is public access was not lost on the members of the Ohio
Senate. With the support of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, Ohio
Auditor Dave Yost and the Ohio Newspaper Association, I introduced
legislation with an innovative solution to overcome the financial and
logistical hurdles that many Ohioans face when their public records
request are denied.
If Senate Bill 321 is signed into law, anyone who believes that their
public records request was improperly denied will be able to challenge
that denial in the Ohio Court of Claims for only $25 and without hiring
a lawyer. And you don't have to travel to Columbus to file the
case because the bill would allow you to file the paperwork at your
local county Clerk of Courts. The initial required mediation should
help resolve the majority of disputes within 45 days. In my experience
as a mediator in my private practice of law, I find that mediation
works in the vast majority of cases to avoid unnecessary time and
expense. If mediation doesn’t work, the Court of Claims will assign one
of its public records law experts to issue a recommendation to the
judge on how to resolve the dispute.
As an elected official, I represent every individual in my district to
the best of my ability, not just those with the wealth and influence to
hold their own in a court of law. By ensuring faster, less expensive
access to public records, we can level the playing field for all
Ohioans and instill greater confidence in the fairness and transparency
of our government entities. We can also save public offices from
spending taxpayer dollars on costly, time-consuming disputes.
Reforming our public records dispute process is an essential step in
increasing public confidence in their elected officials to act
transparently and justly. I'm proud to lead the effort. To learn more
about Senate Bill 321, which passed unanimously in the Senate and now
awaits consideration in the House, watch an interview with me on
youtube.com/OhioSenateGOP or read about the legislation at
www.OhioSenate.gov.
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