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Proposal by NMSU would limit access to public records
New Mexico State University plans to propose extensive changes to restrict the reach of the state’s public records law – amendments that transparency advocates call “troubling” and vow to fight.
A document prepared by NMSU and obtained by the Journal describes a litany of proposed exemptions to the Inspection of Public Records Act, including some that would make secret much of the public sector hiring process and certain law enforcement activities.
The changes have also been a topic of discussion at the Council of University Presidents, made up of the heads of seven New Mexico public universities.
“All of the proposed changes are very troubling,” said Albuquerque attorney Greg Williams, president of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.
Williams said the proposed amendments – should they make it into legislation – represent “the most substantial revision of IPRA since it was enacted.” The changes, he said, “would serve to severely restrict access to information by the public.”
IPRA dates to 1977, although it has been revised, and is New Mexico’s version of the federal Freedom of Information Act, but it provides far greater public access.
NMSU President and former Gov. Garrey Carruthers said the effort stems from the university’s recent experience hiring a new athletics director.
He said several qualified candidates pulled out of the running when they knew their names could be made public.
“We wanted to see if we could get some kind of relief where, much like for the presidents of universities, you have to provide to the public five finalists but up to that point you can keep it confidential as you go through the vetting process,” Carruthers said in a telephone interview. “But it’s pretty clear to me that, for certain jobs, it has a very dampening effect on getting a pool together.”
Jamie Koch, current UNM regent and the former New Mexico legislator who sponsored both IPRA and the Open Meetings Act, said, “I don’t think anything they’re recommending should be done, period.”
“I would say maybe it needs to be toughened and not weakened,” Koch said.
New Mexico courts have disagreed with the notion that IPRA should take a back seat in the public hiring process.
In 2009, FOG and the Farmington newspaper The Daily Times won a court fight to get records of all applicants for the position of city manager. The city of Farmington had refused to produce the records but first the state District Court and then the state Court of Appeals ruled that “when, as here, the application is for a high-ranking public position, the public’s interest in disclosure outweighs the City’s concern that fewer people will apply, and, thus, disclosure is required.”
Since then New Mexico’s Supreme Court has further opened public access to records in decisions in other cases, narrowing or eliminating the grounds on which they can be denied. Courts have relied on language legislators put into the law that says it is the public policy of the state to allow citizens “the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government.”
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