Update HB 3796 Call your State Senator to protect IL FOIA

Yesterday the Illinois House voted to override the Governor's veto on HB 3796.  While we're not sure when the bill will be brought before the Senate for a vote (later this week or the first week of December), we're asking you to CALL YOUR STATE SENATOR TODAY (and forward this information to your networks)!  Tell them you oppose this bill because it severely curbs the ability of the public to monitor government activities. 

Click Here to Find your Senator's contact info

Below are specific points that you can make when you call:      

• This bill for "voluminous requests" is confusing and creates more problems than solutions.
• Mechanisms currently exist in the FOIA to protect public bodies from "unduly burdensome" requests and "recurrent requesters."
• This bill will snare regular FOIA users who ask for routine documents and cause a delay of over a month to receive documents.
• There are 7000+ public bodies in Illinois, and not nearly enough media outlets to hold them all accountable.  We rely on Illinois residents to monitor local government to keep it in check.
• This bill creates the "haves" and a "haves-not" in Illinois with respect to the right to public records because of the fees up to $100, which can be incurred for asking for routine electronic documents that can easily be attached to an email to send to the requester.
• There is no empirical evidence that the public bodies' complaints of "abusive" or "harassing" requesters, and for the anecdotal cases where these requesters exist, the unduly burdensome and recurrent requester provisions in FOIA should suffice and public bodies should avail themselves of those remedies.

Thank you for your civic participation.