New Jersey lawmakers fast track bill that could restrict records access under open records law

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey lawmakers voted Monday to advance a measure that could make it easier for government agencies to withhold documents under the state’s open records law, casting it as a modernizing bill that would cut back on profiteering businesses.

Committees in the Democratic-led Senate and Assembly approved the fast-tracked legislation that comes months after members were up for election and amid a swirl of protest from transparency advocates who say the bill will make getting information from government more difficult.

Those opposed included two leading Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, first lady Tammy Murphy and Rep. Andy Kim, along with the state’s office of the public defender, the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Testimony in the Senate Budget Committee went on for hours on Monday, overwhelmingly from those opposed to the measure, though there were supporters.

“This is an attack on transparency and part of a disturbing trend in the New Jersey Legislature, where lawmakers decrease public access to information under the guise of ‘transparency,’” according to a letter from the League of Women Voters, the ACLU and the Working Families Party to legislative leaders.

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