Compliance is easier said than done — at least, according to the general deputy counsel for the New Mexico Corrections Department.
“The regime established by IPRA makes it so even if you do comply, you’re still subject to liability, even if you forget even one document,” said Michel Rivera Ramirez, referring to the state Inspection of Public Records Act. “And it comes out maybe in discovery somewhere and people come to find out.”
Ramirez’s remarks came at the second-to-last meeting Tuesday of the IPRA Task Force in Santa Fe, where advocates, attorneys, members of the media and records personnel relayed their experiences with a statute hailed as one of the state’s core transparency laws.
Public records advocates emphasized the importance of government transparency — and strengthening or maintaining IPRA as it is — while custodians suggested changes they want to see to the law, such as adding a mediation process before someone fills a lawsuit.
“I’m sure you’re going to hear from a lot of the agencies that have to respond about how burdensome IPRA is, and from the standpoint of a requestor, I just really want to urge you not to make it more expensive or more difficult to access public information that belongs to the public,” said Kristina Fisher, associate director of the think tank Think New Mexico. “And please, don’t create any new exceptions. I think IPRA should stay as it is, or be improved, rather than be made more restrictive.”
The state Department of Justice’s IPRA Task Force was established during the legislative session earlier this year to study the law’s implementation and effectiveness amid what state agencies and local governments say are skyrocketing requests for records that swamp records custodians and their staff. It’s the product of the unanimously passed House Joint Memorial 2, spearheaded by Rep. Cathrynn Brown, a Carlsbad Republican who in previous years introduced unsuccessful bills to change IPRA.
The task force has until Oct. 1 to compile a report for Legislature based on the feedback members have heard throughout its summer statewide tour, plus any legislative actions the board recommends.
Jim Weber/New Mexican file photo
‘The people’s right to know’
At Tuesday‘s meeting, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said it is difficult for his office to meet the demand of IPRA requests, which include eight or nine requests for footage from YouTubers per day. The issue of an apparent influx of requests for body camera footage that then gets posted online has come up repeatedly throughout the task force’s previous meetings.
“I would agree that there should be something that is put into the legislation giving priority to people that live in the state of New Mexico,” Mendoza said. “It’s hard to balance who’s more important: YouTubers, the private citizen that’s just looking for their motor vehicle accident report, the press — but we have to take those IPRAs as they come.”
Bill Church, executive editor of The New Mexican and executive director of Searchlight New Mexico, said “now is not the time to make IPRA more restrictive.”
“IPRA’s sole purpose is the people’s right to know. Its importance is rooted in the First Amendment,” Church said. “And this isn’t easy, as this task force has grown to know.”
“But if the New Mexico DOJ and the [attorney general] can’t get CYFD to be transparent, what are the chances for everyday New Mexicans who count on IPRA to seek the truth?” Church asked, referencing a lawsuit Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s office filed in April alleging the state Children, Youth and Families Department was illegally withholding records.
He outlined five suggestions for improving the statute: strictly defining “burdensome,” banning “illegal” redaction fees, mandating complete employment disclosures, penalizing agencies with a history of IPRA complaints and delays and providing more technology to “stop the restriction of access” and instead post records online.
Several described IPRA litigation as a method of making money — including for inmates, according to Corrections Department records custodian Sharon Alexander, whose department has frequently been subject to lawsuits from records seekers in recent years. She said incarcerated people use IPRA for “schemes” and recommended any damages awarded to inmates during IPRA lawsuits be redirected to the Crime Victims Reparation Commission fund or the victims of their crime.
“We see all the time where inmates are messaging each other, saying, ‘Well, this person didn’t respond to me,’ ‘Send them an IPRA and you’re going to win,’ ” Alexander said. “You just see through their messages that they know this is a way for them to make money, and a lot of money.”
Gabriela Ibañez Guzmán, a staff attorney at Somos Un Pueblo Unido, said the immigrant rights group has hit roadblocks with records requests to some state agencies, which can require litigation that leads to further delays in accessing public information.
“We’ve used IPRA to monitor compliance with laws, and also to determine if there are perhaps unwritten policies and procedures that the public may not know about,” Guzmán said.
The task force’s final stop on its statewide tour — which has taken the group all over the state — is set for Wednesday in Albuquerque.
