Senate subcommittee works on FOIA bill

Listen to this week's City Quick Connect podcast interview with Tiger Wells regarding this hearing.

Changes to the Freedom of Information Act were on the agenda of a Senate subcommittee this week. 

H3191 passed the House during the 2015 session and is now starting its way through the Senate. Read more here about changes to FOIA during the 2015 session regarding the process for amending a meeting agenda after a meeting begins.

Charleston Sen. Chip Campsen

This week, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee considered the House-passed bill to establish an Office of Freedom of Information Act Review within the Administrative Law Court. 

This new body would act as an intermediary if a government body believes a FOIA request is unreasonable or if a requester believes a government body isn’t complying with the law. 

H3191 also addresses fees governments can charge for filling FOIA requests and changes the amount of time a government body has to respond to a request.

The Association’s Tiger Wells, government affairs liaison, has been involved with a working group of legislators and other stakeholders to address concerns that had been raised regarding the bill after it passed the House. Senators decided not to report the bill out of subcommittee this week so this group could continue working to tackle issues raised during the meeting.

The subcommittee is chaired by Senator Chip Campsen with Senators Gerald Malloy, Lee Bright, Karl Allen and Tom Young serving as members.

Listen to the City Quick Connect podcast for an interview with Tiger about what happened at the subcommittee hearing. Keep up with what's happening with this and other bills in the weekly legislative report.