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A Senate committee Wednesday delayed consideration of a bill to strengthen Alabama s public records law to give other groups time to propose changes to the bill.
The Senate Judiciary Committee carried the bill over at the request of Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, the bill s sponsor. We have got to allow the public reasonable access to (public documents) in a reasonable time, and it s that simple, Orr said. They re not an agency s documents. They re the people s documents.
Alabama has one of the weakest public records laws in the nation. Public bodies are not required to respond to requests from citizens and can charge exorbitant fees for producing documents. The only way to force an agency to produce a public document it refuses to release is to file a lawsuit.