{"id":2364,"date":"2018-04-26T14:52:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T18:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/?p=2364"},"modified":"2018-05-05T15:03:34","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T19:03:34","slug":"nika-will-make-public-records-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/nika-will-make-public-records-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Nika Will Make Public Records Public"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2016, after the work of many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.muckrock.com\/project\/the-road-to-massachusetts-public-records-reform-33\/\">progressive advocates,<\/a> the legislature passed and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/politics\/index.ssf\/2016\/06\/gov_charlie_baker_signs_public.html\">the Governor<\/a> signed legislation that reformed the Massachusetts <a href=\"https:\/\/malegislature.gov\/Laws\/GeneralLaws\/PartI\/TitleX\/Chapter66\">public records law<\/a> for the first time since the early 1970&#8217;s. This legislation was a big improvement, but it was also incomplete.<\/p>\n<p>What about the law was good? State agencies now have 15 days to fully comply with records requests; municipalities will have 25 days. The law also caps charges, therefore making records less expensive and more accessible to the general public.<\/p>\n<p>What was left undone? \u00a0The legislature exempted themselves, the Governor\u2019s office, and the judiciary; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gloucestertimes.com\/news\/local_news\/advocates-push-to-open-legislature-s-records\/article_a9c30601-3285-5a28-91dd-fbc2cdf3b7ed.html\"> the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the only state where these three bodies are exempt from the public records law<\/a>. The last time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/2015\/11\/09\/18422\/massachusetts-gets-d-grade-2015-state-integrity-investigation\">The Center for Public Integrity<\/a> graded the Massachusetts legislature for accountability, they earned a &#8220;D&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that progressive legislators and community members are fighting to eliminate the exemptions. \u00a0I will join with these legislators and work for these reforms. When elected, <a href=\"https:\/\/commonwealthmagazine.org\/politics\/public-records\/lawmakers-refuse-to-release-records\/\">unlike my opponent<\/a>, I will voluntarily comply with public records requests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2016, after the work of many progressive advocates, the legislature passed and the Governor signed legislation that reformed the Massachusetts public records law for the first time since the early 1970&#8217;s. This legislation was a big improvement, but it was also incomplete. What about the law was good? State agencies now have 15 days &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/nika-will-make-public-records-public\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nika Will Make Public Records Public<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2371,"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions\/2371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electnika.com\/staging03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}