The state committee that rules on access to government records should be able to start meeting again soon — and tackling the backlog of cases that has been exacerbated by Utah lawmakers delaying to appoint new members so the group can do its work.
After months at a standstill, three names have finally been moved forward to join the Utah State Records Committee and give the body enough members to be able to resume business.
The nominees received initial approval late last month from the Utah Senate’s Business and Labor Confirmation Committee. They are: Todd Sheeran, the current city attorney for Herriman; Jeffrey Marshall, an engineer in the state’s aerospace industry; and Logan Wilde, who has previously served as a state lawmaker, Morgan County commissioner and the Utah commissioner of agriculture and food.
Nova Dubovik, the interim chair of the Records Committee, said she looks forward to working with the three. It is anticipated that they will receive a final vote from the full Senate on Dec. 18 to confirm their appointments. Then, the committee could hold its regularly scheduled monthly meeting set for the following day, though new members will have be trained.
Moving forward, Dubovik said she would like to see the Legislature make changes this coming legislative session to avoid leaving the committee unable to meet.
”Allow members to continue serving until a replacement is confirmed, so we don’t have vacancies or lose a quorum, which prevents us from holding business and creates a huge backlog,” she told The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Records Committee met in a larger room than usual to accommodate the large crowd at the Utah State Records Committee hearing, on Thursday, July 18, 2024.
The Utah State Records Committee has been on pause since the end of September, when the last of its three outgoing members’ terms expired. That left the typically seven-person committee with just four members. It needs five to legally conduct business.
Every year, more and more records appeals are filed, with some stretching up to six months before a hearing. The committee had two meetings scheduled for October to try to work through the backlog. But both had to be canceled, as well as one in November, hampering transparency and making already lengthy wait times for cases even worse — something a state audit also dinged the committee for, despite them not being allowed to meet.
The body typically keeps a low profile, but it drew the ire of lawmakers with its recent decisions to order the release of Utah Attorney General’s Sean Reyes’ work calendars. That’s why some have said the delay in appointing new members to the committee has seemed like retaliation.
Even if there is partisan split, it is incredibly rare for the Utah Senate not to move forward with a nomination. And the process typically moves forward in days.
Before the time came that the Records Committee was going to lose its quorum, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox had moved to reappoint the three outgoing members to renewed terms.
But the Senate Business and Labor Confirmation Committee declined in September to forward the names to the full body for a vote. Republican Sen. Curt Bramble, chair of that committee, previously told The Tribune: “It was clear there was no support in the committee” for those individuals.
He has declined to say what, specifically, about the members led him and the GOP-majority on the committee to not support the reappointments.
Bramble said his disapproval was not over his disagreement with how the Records Committee has ruled, though he does not support the group’s decision with Reyes’ calendars. In response to that, the outgoing legislator rushed to sponsor a bill that passed earlier this year that explicitly made public officials’ calendars exempt from disclosure.
Under the new law, the public cannot ask for an official’s full calendar, and must instead request only specific meetings with identified individuals within a limited timeframe. Reyes still released five years of work calendars last month in a settlement agreement.
Calendars come up during hearings
During the initial Nov. 25 confirmation hearings for the new nominees, Bramble repeatedly brought up the calendar decision and asked how they would have acted.
“We had to clarify the law this past year because the Records Committee, in my opinion, had a creative interpretation of the calendar,” he said. “How would you respond to that?”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sen. Curt Bramble committee chair, asks questions of a witness, during the Senate Business and Labor Committee discussion of SR1, which will limit media access to the Senate floor and committee rooms, on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022.
Marshall, the engineer, said he has spent a lot of time working with the technical aspect of records — how they are created and managed by a company and later retrieved. He said calendars are unique because they include data that is a record under the law, but he also said there could be legitimate privacy concerns for a state legislator, who is considered a part-time elected official, with their personal life.
“That could be a gray area,” he said.
Sheeran, the city attorney, quoted a part of state records law that requires a requester to submit their ask with “reasonable specificity,” saying that should have prevented a full calendar from being released in the first place.
Wilde, the former legislator who later joined the hearing remotely, questioned where the line is as the nature of records changes in a digital era.
“The biggest hangup that I can see happening is information is changing,” he said. “Calendars over the years, they’ve become vastly different. … There are security risks today that didn’t exist before.”
Wilde also questioned why reporters wanted access and whether it was “just a fishing expedition.”
“Are we trying to play ‘getcha’ with public officials?” he asked.
(Rick Egan | Tribune file photo) Rep. Logan Wilde comments on a bill, late in the evening, on the final day of the 2019 Legislature, March 14, 2019.
Bramble posed a hypothetical along those lines, asking if an elected official did something immoral outside of their job that did not impact their official duties, if the public should have a right to know about that.
“How far does right to know go into nonofficial activities?” he asked.
All three candidates said information should not be released unless those officials made some kind of formal announcement, or if it involved someone the individual worked in government with.
The nominees also debated fees for records requests, how their personal feelings on whether a record should be public or private might sway them, and balancing the public’s interest.
Concerns about ‘politicization’ with one nominee
Both the nominations for Sheeran and Marshall moved forward with unanimous approval. But one senator raised concerns about Wilde.
Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, questioned why Wilde — who has been in and around Utah politics for decades — was being named to the position on the Records Committee that is supposed to be held by a general member of the public.
The Records Committee is made up of members that are supposed to represent different sectors and interests in what records should be released. Sheeran, for instance, is nominated for the position representing political subdivisions. Marshall would be representing the private sector. There is also a representative of the media.
“It does concern me a little bit that it seems like there’s a bit more of a politicization of the appointment here with the former legislator, a former appointed executive of the state,” Blouin said.
He questioned if Wilde could also still be the subject of ongoing records requests, having left his post as the commissioner over agriculture in 2021 amid questions in the department. There were also questions around Wilde’s potential conflicts of interest as a state legislator in 2019, when he passed a bill on gravel pits while he was leasing land to a quarry operator.
“To me, it makes sense to just have an ordinary citizen who’s interested in making sure that the government is functioning in a transparent and accountable way,” Blouin added.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, asks a question of the sponsor, as the Senate discusses a constitutional amendment over citizen initiatives during a special session, on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024.
Bramble and the other legislators on the Senate confirmation committee defended Wilde, saying he currently is a regular rancher and farmer. Several said that they would like a former lawmaker on the Records Committee who understands their interests.
“He’s the kind of individual I’d like making decisions on my behalf,” said Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton.
Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, said: “To just pull a name off the street would be short-sighted.”
Sandall said he wants members of the Records Committee to have knowledge and understanding about how the law works. “To try to turn this into a little bit of a political debate, I don’t think that’s valuable at this time,” he added.
Wilde’s nomination went forward with Blouin the sole vote in opposition.
