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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- E-mail and other correspondence between the public and state lawmakers will remain open records under an amended bill passed Tuesday by the Utah Senate.
House Bill 12 had sought to make those communications protected records, unless either the sender or receiver said otherwise.
But the bill's Senate sponsor, Sen. David Thomas, R-South Weber, abandoned that idea on Tuesday, saying his decision was based on an apparent deadlock over the issue in the Senate and a rumored veto of the bill by Gov. Jon Huntsman.
"The reason I'm doing this is that there are still important things in this bill," Thomas said, after asking the Senate to amend the bill by slicing out the two lines that would protect communications.
"It's unfortunate that we couldn't have a better debate on this issue of privacy of individuals."
Senators voted for the amendment and the passed HB 12 on a 24-4 vote. Already passed by the House, the bill now goes back there for concurrence, and then on to Huntsman.
Governor's spokesman Mike Mower said Huntsman will consider the amended legislation before making a decision about a veto.
HB 12 is one of several pieces of legislation that grew out of legislative task force review of the Government Records Access and Management Act, which was first enacted 15 years ago. GRAMA, as the law is known, seeks to balance privacy with public access to government.
Tuesday's change to HB 12 is a victory for the Utah Media Coalition, a consortium of television and print news agencies which has fought this portion of the bill.
Media outlets were concerned that protecting the communications might allow for communications between a lawmaker and a lobbyist or other special interest group to stay out of the public view, coalition lobbyist Frank Pignanelli said Tuesday.
"I think there was a legitimate concern about privacy, but there are two sets of rights, the right to individual privacy and the rights of the public to know what government is doing" Pignanelli said. "The public's right to know trumps."
Not everyone agrees.
During Tuesday's debate, Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, cautioned against the amendment, saying the public would be horrified to think the private information they often share with lawmakers would be available to the media or other citizens under GRAMA.
Hillyard suggested tagging state e-mails with an automatic response message notifying senders that the information could become a public record.
"I agree with Senator Hillyard," said Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem. "I think this is a very bad mistake. We ought not to accept this amendment and deal with the governor later. I believe we will regret this and come back and change it later."
Senators were clearly conflicted about HB 12.
Monday's vote on the same amendment failed on a 14-14 vote. On Tuesday, the amended bill also appeared headed for failure.
Votes stacked up evenly at first -- the bill needed 15 votes to pass -- until Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, cast the final vote in favor of the measure, causing other Senate Republicans to rapidly switch their votes.
Pignanelli said the public shouldn't fear that privacy is at risk. In its current form, GRAMA already gives lawmakers and state agencies the discretion to make decisions and protect personal communications.
HB 12 also keeps communications between legislators and staff private, sets up a retention schedule for keeping records and requires government officials to notify citizens how their personal information collected by government agencies may be used.
---------- On the Net: http://www.le.state.ut.us/ 7/82006/htmdoc/hbillhtm/HB0012.htm
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
