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[Emily Erickson, Louisiana State U.]

The Cartography of Access
I like the mish mash [of state open-records laws].  It gives us the opportunity to fine-tune each state's laws to meet problems as they arise.   It also creates a wide field for experimenting with openness concepts.

~ Rebecca Daugherty, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press[1]

I.	Introduction
Journalists have been watching nervously in recent months to see how much access to public information will closed off in the post-September 11 United States.  Although the federal executive and legislative branches have certainly been the chief subjects of this scrutiny, the greatest impact on most journalists will likely be in the states, which can often be more nimble - and more reactionary - in response to changes in the national climate.  Because of these traits, these "laboratories of democracy" generally provide good comparative data about how different policy approaches work in different conditions, and this would also seem to be true of freedom of information (FOI) laws, which grant rights of access to records and meetings in every state across the nation.  The importance of weighing the different approaches to access law seem even greater because it is an area that significantly affects the news media's watchdog role, and yet has no real First Amendment protection. [2]  The current vulnerability of access in today's climate highlights this reality.

II.	Literature Review
Through the years, comparative analysis of state access laws has been fairly scarce.  Certainly government openness is at best a slippery construct, and the notion of measuring "openness" is challenging at best.  Anecdotes have often been the most common means of putting a finger on how good or bad state governments are at providing journalists and citizens with public records and access to meetings.  Scholarly attempts to be more precise have usually entailed either in-depth legal analysis of a single state law[3] or a brief 50-state survey that looks at various elements of access laws.
The first scholarly article to take the latter approach followed a decade of state legislative activity on the access front, describing the components of 25 open-meetings laws that had been passed in the preceding 10 years.  In this 1975 study, the Harvard Law Review based its assessment of the actual open-meetings statutes in terms of various provisions, then described the "effectiveness" of the new statutes by reporting the feedback received from editors in states with the new laws. The study concluded that the new legislation had "neither revolutionized the conduct of state and local government nor brought it to a grinding halt," and then proceeded to provide a new model open-meetings law.[4]  
In their "Practical Review of State Open Records Laws," attorneys Burt Braverman and Wesley Heppler took a similar approach, but made their analysis of the statutory components of open-records laws slightly more in-depth.[5]  This development reflected the growing sophistication of the state statutes themselves, many of which had by the 1980s already undergone additional revisions and amendments to clarify and strengthen the laws.  In the face of that growing complexity, the authors noted that the laws, while following "certain basic patterns," nevertheless differed "greatly in their express terms and in the manner in which their provisions have been construed and applied."[6]  By this time, the right-to-know principle had itself become widely accepted; laws were in place throughout the nation, many had become stronger through legislative amendments and judicial interpretations, and the federal laws had also undergone some fine-tuning.  As such, the impetus to catalog components of various access laws, while still helpful, became increasingly less interesting in terms of scholarship.  
By the decade's end, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) began publishing Tapping Officials' Secrets, which became a sort of keeper of the FOI state-provisions flame.  Tapping Officials' Secrets has served as an exhaustive - if somewhat idiosyncratic - reference tool for citizens, journalists and researchers because of its thoroughness in mapping the minutiae if each state's open-records and meetings laws.  It even lists numerous types of record, from autopsy reports to marriage license applications, so each state's contributing attorney can address whether they are public or exempt.  Indeed, this year's fourth edition even added an online interface that can cull out certain components for comparison among several or all states.[7]   
While Tapping Officials' Secrets and other professional FOI updates may have quelled the need for straight comparisons of access law, they also provided an accessible source of data for different comparative approaches, such as that taken by David Pritchard and Neil Nemeth in 1989.   In "Predicting Content of State Public Records Laws," the authors did a content analysis, quantifying the various components of state open-records laws from Tapping Officials' Secrets, and using those scores to test for a correlation between statutory "openness" and state-level political culture.  In that study, the authors did not find a significant correlation between the two variables; however, they highlighted a new approach that could be taken in freedom of information studies - a theory-driven route that could potentially illuminate some of the dynamics underlying access law in various states.[8]  

III.	Elazar's Political Culture Typology
That route consisted of looking through the lens of political culture, defined by political scientist Daniel Elazar as "the particular pattern of orientations to political action in which each political system is embedded."[9]  Elazar's work has borne years of close scrutiny and skepticism.  In 1969, Ira Sharkansky subjected the theory to its first empirical test, and found it made an "additive" contribution to the field, reporting that it showed "important relationships with several traits of state politics and public service."[10]  After 30 years of trial by empirical fire, the theory has been described as "the most comprehensive and useful conceptual framework for investigating state political subcultures."[11]  
The theory rests on two opposing views of the American political system.  One view posits a political system designed to promote the workings of a "marketplace" in which citizens can vie to promote their respective self-interests.  The other envisions a "commonwealth" in which citizens work toward shared goals based on moral principles. The opposition of these two notions is manifested in three different political subcultures found across the nation: traditionalistic, individualistic, and moralistic.  The various permutations of these three subcultures are based upon the historical migration patterns of Americans across the continent, particularly in the country's early years. In short, as different waves of new Americans moved and settled across the nation, with their various religious and cultural heritages, they gave shape to an almost geological pattern of communities in which shared views of the state emerged over time. Each community, according to Elazar, "possesses certain unique cultural characteristics shared in some measure by the people within it, all of whom respond to the way of life it embodies."[12]  These unique cultural characteristics include, importantly, a shared notion of the political system derived from the opposing marketplace and commonwealth concepts. 

ù	In the moralistic culture, the commonwealth conception dominates; politics is considered "one of the great human activities: the search for the good society."[13]  Its citizens are thus expected to be highly involved in policy making, just as government is expected to be highly involved in the communities it serves. 
ù	The individualistic culture places the most emphasis on the marketplace conception of the state.  Its citizens see politics as a business, sometimes a dirty business, in which various interests compete, and in which politicians are rewarded to the extent that they serve their constituents' interests. Government itself is expected to facilitate marketplace access and encourage private initiative over government initiative. 
ù	The traditionalistic culture is rooted "in an ambivalent attitude toward the marketplace coupled with a paternalistic and elitist conception of the commonwealth." Citizens in this culture, generally found in the South, accept a "hierarchical society as part of the ordered nature of things," and expect government to function for the common good.  However, the elites in government are the ones who determine what that good is, and ultimately government serves to maintain the existing social order.  

All three of these, Elazar cautioned over the years, are archetypes.  Most states, in fact, possess permutations of all three, but generally one of the three serves as a state's dominant political culture.  And, although critics have called Elazar's original study "impressionistic," his theory has been supported by a large number of empirical studies done over the past 30 years, showing that moralistic states have higher levels of political participation[14] and that governments in moralistic states are more accountable than those in individualistic and traditionalistic states.[15]   For example, a study of public officials convicted of various crimes in the 1970s showed that individualistic states had the highest levels of corruption, moralistic states had the lowest, and traditionalistic states fell in the middle. Another study sought to test whether "moralistic political cultures are likely to produce political systems more responsive to the demands of reformers than are individualistic and traditionalistic political cultures." Controlling for affluence - a variable that was strongly correlated to political culture - the study found that political culture did indeed have an independent effect upon various indicators of reform.[16]  
Not all studies have shown strong correlations - Pritchard and Nemeth's open-records study, for one - but perhaps one key to the variance in findings may be the context in which the realities of a political system are "embedded."  In an earlier examination of Elazar's theory, Charles Johnson noted that an "awareness of the cultural context within which relationships are being observed could alert the researcher to problems of the comparability of empirical measures for a great many contexts."[17]  Clearly, the initial failure to find a relationship between political culture and open-records laws may have been because there is no relationship.  And yet, Johnson's suggestion that there might be a fuller context to explore - and that political culture might inform that context - is a provocative one, where the intuitive appeal of the link between political culture and access seems to demand a second look.  
Moreover, the question of a relationship is not just an academic one.  The state-level access landscape has been shifting dramatically again in the past decade, and in even more in recent months.  Concerns about privacy in light of easily accessible computerized and online databases of personal information have been a major force shaping a number of state laws, and these concerns have been exacerbated by the security fears stemming from last fall's terrorist attacks.  At the same time, nonprofit FOI organizations have been sprouting up all over the country, attempting to improve access at the state level.  If political culture provides a backdrop for other policy outputs and legislative struggles - which past research has supported - it seems particularly vital to ask once again if it informs FOI as a policy as well.  In short, this theoretical approach still seems to hold potential for illuminating some of the variations in FOI policy and perhaps ultimately the strategies taken to improve those policies.  

IV.	Methodology
When Pritchard and Nemeth tested for a correlation between political culture and open-records laws, they suggested that states with predominantly moralistic cultures would likely permit the "greatest degree of access to governmental information" because they value the highest degree of political participation.[18]  That they were unsuccessful in finding a correlation is, however, not surprising for several reasons. [19]  
ù	Statutes are, after all, complex edifices, constructed by many individuals and committees, products of the time and circumstances that surrounded their creation.  Some of these statutes, for example, share artificial similarities to those in other states because they were drafted from model laws provided by groups like the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ - formerly SDX).  Other statutes are so dramatically unique in their structure that comparison is extremely difficult.  
ù	More important, perhaps, is the truism articulated by Professor Harold Cross 50 years ago, when he noted in his seminal study on freedom of information that the law and reality of access "are two different things, often widely disparate."[20]  
ù	And finally, it is possible that the quantitative approach used by Pritchard and Nemeth was not one that adequately utilized political culture as a construct.  This paper will make the argument that, while quantitative studies lend themselves to testing the political-culture variable, they need to be carefully informed by a more qualitative understanding of the issue at hand - in this case, the dynamics underlying open-records laws - before quantification is undertaken.  
In short, 1) open-records laws are complex and difficult to compare against one another, 2) they do not always tell the whole story about how open government records are in practice, and 3) the relationship between political culture and public records may not be a linear connection between culture and policy output in the first place.  There may in fact be more to consider in order to fully grasp any intersection between the two.  
This study explores the potential intersection more contextually by examining the open-records laws of the first 12 states that conducted statewide "records audits."  These audits have ostensibly offered a more concrete, "real-world" measure of openness in practice, using the manpower of newspaper employees who have been sent out to specific government agencies to request records that are, by law, open to the public.  The resulting "compliance rate" - i.e., the percent of requests that were fulfilled - have then been publicized in the news, sometimes with direct improvements in law and education of government employees following this publicity.  And, as it happens, the first 12 states that conducted records audits also represent a diversity of political cultures, as represented by Elazar's original typology and Sharkansky's derivative scale.  (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1
Political Culture Type
Elazar
Political Culture Scale
Sharkansky
M
Minnesota
1.00
M
Wisconsin
1.00
IM
Connecticut
3.00
IM
Rhode Island
3.00
I
New Jersey
4.00
I
Pennsylvania
4.28
I
Illinois
4.72
I
Indiana
6.33
T
Virginia
7.86
TM
North Carolina
8.50
T
Georgia
8.80
T
Arkansas
9.00

The laws of these states will be examined in a streamlined and contextual manner, informed not only by a handful of statutory components (outlined below), but also by real-world observations of more than 80 experts from the 12 states - attorneys, journalists, professors and activists - based on in-depth telephone interviews.  That statutory analysis[21] is broken down loosely into the law's substance (the scope of open records) and process (the system of requesting records that citizens and journalists operate in). [22]  The analysis also considers policy innovation within the laws and whether or not the audit results reflect the strength of a given state's open-records law.  To get at these constructs, this chapter will consider the following: 

Statutory Substance 
ù	Legislative intent: One way to gauge a statute's openness is to see whether it includes a statement of legislative intent, which ostensibly sets the tone of the law, offering courts a sense of direction in their later interpretations of the statute.  The extent to which it articulates a presumption of openness or advises that the statute should be liberally interpreted is a sign of openness.
ù	Definition/scope of records: How a state draws the parameters of "public record" also provides the foundation of its open-records law.  Earlier common-law definitions sometimes drew those parameters quite narrowly, considering only records that were required by law for agencies to create or maintain.  Needless to say, because records are often byproducts of government work, the bulk of them are not actually mentioned in state codes.  Broader records definitions are likely to reflect a stronger level of openness and either create or bolster the operational presumption of openness in the records law.  Broad definitions include virtually all records handled by a government entity, regardless of physical form.  Parameters are also drawn by the scope of government offices that are included in the law.  
ù	Exemptions: Virtually all open-records laws list exemptions to what constitutes "public record," but those lists can vary substantially in form and substance.  The laws ostensibly use one of two possible exemption formats, either listing a relatively small number of general classifications (i.e., privacy or national security) or listing specific records (i.e., autopsy reports).  Provided these are clearly delineated within the statute, they still allow a good level of openness in government.  When they are vague, however, or broad, or buried in other statutes, they decrease the law's clarity and openness.  In addition, if a state has mandatory exemptions in its code - either in the open-records law or elsewhere - public agencies can be sued for releasing the exempted records, which can create a decidedly chilling effect on access overall.  
ù	Policy innovation.  The degree to which a state has actively tried to improve its open-records law would seem to reflect the general state of access in the state.  Although this issue is explored more fully in a related study, it will be noted in this chapter when each state first codified its open-records law and whether any of the current facets of that law are recent innovations.  Other studies have shown that moralistic states tend to be ahead of others in policy innovation, particularly regarding "progressive" policies, of which open-records would clearly be one.  However, it is possible that another form of policy innovation - the strengthening of privacy laws - may be a confounding variable.  As such, the degree to which privacy has been a factor in access law, as well as the length of time it has been a factor, will also be noted.[23]

Statutory Process
ù	Request restrictions, copying fees and time limits: If access is stymied by limitations on whom can ask for a record, by high copying fees or by slow turnaround time, then access is probably not very strong.  Both the statutory constraints and the experts' commentary will inform how open the practical process of records retrieval is in each state.
ù	Route of appeal: A user-friendly appeals process for citizens is another component of an open-records law that signals general openness.  Most statutes provide for court appeal if a requester thinks a refusal to release records is legally wrong.  This, however, is the bare minimum a state can do to ensure access for its citizens, because the time, expense and intimidating nature of a court appeal is universally understood to keep most citizens from pursuing the option - even in the face of egregious violations of the law.  Nevertheless, this can be further weakened by requiring an intermediate "administrative appeal" through the agency before allowing a requester to file a court appeal.  And it can be strengthened by providing an outside source for either advice or mediation.  These outside sources, which range from attorneys general to government FOI commissions, have experienced varying degrees of success, which will be addressed by the state experts to facilitate assessment of each.  
ù	Attorney fees & fines for willful denial: These are, of course, the teeth of any open-records law.  Most states have a provision for discretionary attorney fees (which a judge may or may not give to a prevailing requester) and some form of penalty for willful violations of the law.  Attorney fees tend to be meaningless unless they are automatic when a requester prevails; otherwise, they are rarely handed down.  Penalties are even more meaningless because they're generally so small and so rarely levied against agencies that they hardly even have symbolic meaning unless they are absent from a law altogether, in which case they "symbolize" an absence of access.  

The Records Audits
Like the numerical analysis of statutes, which proved unhelpful in terms of statistical correlation, the actual results of the records audits defy any statistical analysis.  A close look at each audit makes it clear that the compliance rates were at least partly confounded in some states by protocol and training.  What does emerge is that the compliance rates reflect the characteristics of the records and agencies themselves better than they reflect the states in which they were requested.  For example, law enforcement records generally show lower compliance across the board, and arrest "details" are more difficult to get than the less specific daily crime logs.  In addition, it is possibly more significant which records the auditing teams chose in their respective states.  If citizens in moralistic states tend to have higher, more stringent expectations of their government, it would seem likely that they would ask for more challenging records than citizens from traditionalistic and individualistic states.  In other words, the success of a state's government agencies may tell less than the level at which the records audit set the bar.  This latter "measure" goes to the heart of state political cultures in that it addresses community's "expectations of government and the political process,"[24] although it doesn't prove that the government actually meets those expectations.  

V.	Analysis
Is there qualitative evidence that state open-records laws, which differ "greatly in their express terms and the manner in which their provisions have been construed and applied,"[25] might owe some of their differences to the state political cultures from which they were created?  Of the 12 states examined, did those with moralistic political cultures seem to have a greater degree access to records than those with traditionalistic and individualistic cultures?  And did individualistic states, in contrast, have weaker records-access landscapes than the other two?  Past rankings of openness did not appear to support an affirmative answer to these questions, and presumably the explanation for this was either 1) there is no relationship between a state's political culture and its open-records landscape or 2) the relationship between these two constructs exists, but has interacted with other variables to create greater variations than can be adequately measured by a simple correlational statistic.  The examination of these 12 open-records laws suggests something closer to the latter explanation.   Political culture does in fact appear to be one factor that has interacted with others - including geographical proximity between states, historical realities and the competing value of personal privacy.  

A. Geography
One of the notable characteristics of the 12 states examined in this study is that all but two of them can be aligned in geographical pairs that share political cultures: 

ù	North Carolina and Virginia (TM & T: traditionalistic + moralistic and traditionalistic)
ù	Pennsylvania and New Jersey (I: individualistic)
ù	Indiana and Illinois (I: individualistic, but all three political cultures sweep across the two states, with moralistic in the north, individualistic in the middle, and traditionalistic in the south)
ù	Connecticut and Rhode Island (IM: individualistic + moralistic)
ù	Minnesota and Wisconsin (M: moralistic)  
ù	The two remaining states - Arkansas and Georgia - have a (T) traditionalistic political culture in common, but not state borders.  And yet their open-records laws share more in common with each other than with other laws in this study.  

Given the pairing pattern that emerged from the first 12 audits conducted in the country, it seems likely that the diffusion of the audit concept was aided at least in part by geographical proximity.  This notion is strengthened by the obvious fact that the 12 are located in the eastern half of the country, as well as comments from the audit organizers themselves.  Although many states based their audits on the original Indiana audit, there was clearly an awareness of what the state next door was doing as well.[26] 
Some critics have argued that political culture is nothing but another name for broad geographical tendencies.  Perhaps this is true.  Certainly the similarities among the pairs were often striking in comparing state open-records laws.  The pairs share much in common, as will be demonstrated in this analysis.  But just as important, the 12 states - extracted, for the most part, from the derivative Sharkansky scale and returned to the original Elazar typology of three cultures - actually seemed to act their part.  As this analysis will show, political culture did seem to shape the parameters of the perception and reality of access in these states, suggesting that future studies should keep an eye on political culture for its "additive" value in examining state policy.[27]  

B. Political Culture and Statutory Enactment
What became evident over the course of this study is that the respective states' open-records laws are very much tied to the era into which they were enacted.  And it can be argued that the "eras" were in turn tied to the states' respective political cultures and geographical proximity.  
First it should be pointed out that the official date of enactment for each records law is not the whole story.  All of these states had developed common laws to give citizens access to records before those common laws were codified.  But some states had codified records laws long before their current version was passed.  The second note of import is that some of these statutes carry with them an extensive legislative history.  Others have nothing.  Even with substantial gaps in the historical information, however, it is still possible to see a pattern.
First, if one simply considers the timeline of "modern" enactments, the influence of proximity is obvious.  (See Figure 2.)   Moreover, with the exception of North Carolina, there is a chronology of individualistic, traditionalistic, moralistic, then individualistic-hybrid state enactments.  This may seem spurious on its own, but there is more to it than this.  
Figure 2

TM
North Carolina	
1935
I
Pennsylvania	
1957
I
New Jersey
1963
T
Arkansas	
1967
T
Virginia	
1968
T
Georgia
1972
1974: MN passes Data Practices Act
(but open-records portion not added until 1979)
IM
Connecticut	
1975
1975: NC amendments	
IM
Rhode Island
1979
1976: VA amendments
M
Minnesota		
1979
M
Wisconsin
1981
I
Indiana
1983
I
Illinois
1984


For one thing, this chart hides the fact that Minnesota, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois - five of the "last" six states to enact open-records laws - actually had codified laws prior to this.  Wisconsin, for example, dates its original statute to its founding in 1849.  Illinois claims one from late in that century.  So really, with the exception of Rhode Island, these "late" states were actually in the process of reinventing their laws, not creating them for the first time.  In short, they were ahead of other states in this study in terms of their legislative innovation - manifested here as the deliberate codification of access law.  In addition, the enactment dates alone fail to show that North Carolina and Virginia substantially amended their laws in 1975 and 1976, one to create a presumption of openness and the other to create "teeth" via penalties and attorney fees.  
Why does any of this matter in terms of access or political culture?  Because one can divide the history of records laws, across the nation, into a handful of paradigmatic eras that dictated in part the type of access law likely to be enacted.  These eras created three kinds of records law:
ù	Old-style records statutes, which often granted cursory and limited access rights to a state's citizens.
ù	Post-FOIA laws, which came soon after the federal legislation and were informed by that law, Sigma Delta Chi, and generally the post-World-War FOI movement.  These were much more thorough than the old-style laws, and followed the classic format we know today, with statements of legislative intent and presumptions of openness, and often with defined exemptions written into the law.
ù	Modern records laws.  Nearly a decade after enactment of the federal FOIA (and on the heels of the Sunshine Act), Americans were asking questions about the power of government (see Watergate) and computerized information - and thus raising subsequent concerns about citizen privacy.  Laws passed during this era may be structurally similar to other post-FOIA laws, but strongly reflect these additional concerns as well.
In 1935, 1957 and 1963, three states - North Carolina (MT), Pennsylvania (I) and New Jersey (I) - created their first open-records statutes.  North Carolina could be considered an innovator because it codified its law before most other states.  And yet all three states were too early to benefit from the legislative thoughtfulness that emerged out of the federal FOIA's passage.  As a result, they passed old-style laws that were brief and weak, with no statements of legislative intent, no presumptions of openness, no time limits and no enforcement.[28]  
In fact, North Carolina's law was actually designed, not so much to give citizens access, but to preserve records and ensure their turnover to successor agencies and officials.[29]  The difference between North Carolina and the two individualistic states, however, is that it did begin reforming its law in the "modern" years, ultimately adding a statement of legislative intent, broadening the definition to create a presumption of openness, creating an enforcement mechanism and inserting a discretionary attorney fees provision.[30]  In other words, North Carolina might have been included with the post-1975 states, but it only amended, never completely overhauled, its law.  As a result, it continues to retain some of its original old-style shape, with no time requirements and virtually all exemptions scattered through the rest of its statutes.  Pennsylvania and New Jersey, on the other hand, did not succeed in reforming or updating their old-style records law over the years,[31] even though they were embarrassingly dated almost from their inception.   It is as if the two states had one shot at legislation, and then remained frozen in amber for the following half century.  
Arkansas (T), Virginia (T) and Georgia (T) came next, enacting their first open-records laws with the benefit of the FOIA model to make them stronger as access laws.  Arkansas even modeled its law almost squarely on the Sigma Delta Chi version.[32]  These states kept some flavor of their old-style laws, however.  All three of them, for example, held onto the common-law tradition of limiting access rights to state citizens,[33] and both Georgia and Arkansas have relatively few exemptions in their statutes (13 each at last count), but many more throughout the general statutes.[34]  All three, however, have been updating their laws in small steps over the last 30 years, even as their exemption lists have grown.[35]  
The passage of Minnesota's Data Practices Act serves as a watershed separating the two eras by virtue of its original purpose, which was to protect citizens from the government and computerization of their records.[36]  All the open-records enactments that followed - including Minnesota's, which was actually a 1979 amendment to the DPA - gave some nod to privacy in three ways that the first six did not.  

ù	Rhode Island and Illinois actually emphasized in their laws' statements of legislative intent that access was to be balanced against privacy rights.[37]
ù	Wisconsin and Connecticut took a structural approach, building into a balancing test into the statutes that enabled records custodians to weigh access against privacy rights.[38]
ù	Minnesota and Indiana sought to protect privacy by providing for mandatory exemptions with fines for disclosure, which acted as a strong disincentive against disclosing records that might harm privacy.[39]

How does this translate into the access landscapes of these states?  Not all the components examined for this study show strong patterns, but some clearly do.  And if there is any pattern to be found, it seems that it is somehow informed by state political culture and illuminated by the eras in which these states passed their open-records laws.  
C. The Process of Openness
The process of acquiring public records - shaped by statute and practice - can make a dramatic difference in the access landscape.  States that fail to clearly show what is expected of records custodians are presumably not going to have a great degree of openness.  As such, 1) time limits, 2) copying fees, 3) routes of appeal and 4) attorney fees and penalty provisions all help to shape the expectations and demands of government agencies.  The question broached in this section is whether these components seem to be stronger or weaker, depending on the state political culture, geography, and enactment period from which each open-records law emerged.  The answer appears to be that there are certainly statutory patterns that correlate with the three factors to investigate this question further. 
1.	Time Limits & Copying Fees
"Information delayed is information denied."  This truism was articulated by many of the FOI experts interviewed for this study.  And indeed, one of the most important facets of a state's access landscape is whether requesters will have to wait a significant length of time before receiving records.  This is, of course, vital to journalists in particular, who are working under deadlines.  Late information simply will not make it into print if the story has already come and gone.  
 Figure 3
Pritchard & Nemeth
		1989[40]
This study
2002
TM
North Carolina
no provision
no provision
I
Pennsylvania
no provision
no provision
I
New Jersey
no provision
no provision
T
Arkansas
no provision
3 days
T
Virginia
no provision
5 + 7 days
T
Georgia
no provision
3 days
IM
Connecticut
yes
4 days
IM
Rhode Island
yes
10 days
M
Minnesota
no provision
"appropriate & prompt"
M
Wisconsin
yes
"as soon as practicable"
I
Indiana
yes
24 hours
I
Illinois
yes
7 + 7 = 14 days

As it turns out, the time-limit issue did show some important things about open-records laws in the 12 states.  (See Figure 3.)  In fact, a glance at Pritchard & Nemeth's coding from 1989 - when placed against this revised model - actually does show potential correlations.  Once again, the laws passed before the mid-70s did not address time limits - and apparently did not incorporate them into existing law even by 1981.  Those passed after 1974 generally did have time limits.[41]  Minnesota, ever the "outlier," has demanded compliance only in an "appropriate and prompt" manner, while Wisconsin has taken a similar, but stronger, path, requiring records be turned over "as soon as practicable."[42]  Presumably, Pritchard and Nemeth made a judgment call and coded the stronger (but still vague) Wisconsin mandate as a positive presence of time limit, whereas Minnesota was coded as having no time limit.  In practice, Wisconsin has historically experienced few problems with stalling - until the notorious Woznicki case, that is - and Minnesota has had more, but still not in a systematic way. [43]
In North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, there have never been time limits for records retrieval, nor have there been changes in the law over the years.  Not surprisingly, the experts in all three states said that delays are a significant problem.[44]
As the column for "this study" demonstrates, things have changed since 1981.  Reform has reached the "Post-FOIA" laws of the traditionalistic states, all three of which now have specific time limits of three to five days.  Both Arkansas' and Georgia's laws are actually stronger than three days, requiring turnover immediately unless the record is being used or stored, but Georgia only recently "hardened" its limit after numerous complaints that requesters were being forced to wait the full three days, even for simple records requests.[45]  Virginia has a five-day rule, with an additional seven days provided if the records custodian can make a case for extra time, although experts did not seem to think this was systematically abused.[46]
Even with the specific time limits in the two individualistic-moralistic states, there have been problems with stalling.  In Connecticut, this is even in the face of a four-day rule, and in Rhode Island, the 10-business-day limit is often stretched to its limit.[47]  Additional stalling is hardly needed; nevertheless, there is an additional 30-day window for agencies that plead for more time.  Illinois experts also say their seven-day limit is co-opted by a vague loophole that gives agencies an additional seven days if needed. [48] This means that the law effectively mandates 14 days, which is the highest limit of states that have limit provisions.  
 Figure 4
Copy-fee limits
Problems?
TM
North Carolina
reasonable
NO
I
Pennsylvania
reasonable
yes
I
New Jersey
25-75 cents
NO
T
Arkansas
actual
NO
T
Virginia
reasonable
yes
T
Georgia
reasonable
yes
IM
Connecticut
25-50 cents
NO
IM
Rhode Island
15 cents
NO
M
Minnesota
appropriate
yes
M
Wisconsin
reasonable
NO
I
Indiana
actual
yes
I
Illinois
actual
NO
	
If there is a cohesive pattern in terms of copying fees, it would have to be teased out with a larger sample. (See Figure 4.)  A couple observations can be made, however.  All but three of the states, for example, limit copying fees with the terms actual, reasonable, or appropriate.   The three states that require specific monetary limits are "I" and "IM" states in close proximity to one another: New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island.  Perhaps most salient on a practical level is the fact that Pennsylvania requires "reasonable" fees and its experts report problems with overcharging.[49]  New Jersey - the most comparable to Pennsylvania - sets the fees specifically, between 25 and 75 cents a copy, plus retrieval time if necessary, and its experts say overcharging is not a problem.[50]  What can truly be inferred from this process area?  Merely this: it is possible that specificity works the best when it comes to copying fees - regardless of the state.  

2.	Route of Appeal
The extent to which a state provides a mechanism allowing people to seek redress in the case of potentially illegal noncompliance is arguably one of the most important facets of a strong open-records law.  Court appeal was not guaranteed in earlier laws, but it serves as the baseline provision for state laws today.  Anything less will considerably weaken the law; anything more can make a modest or dramatic difference.  There is also the emergence of the "advice and mediation" route in recent state reforms that can precede the court process.  When both components are considered, a great degree of variance emerges in terms of how user-friendly the system is to those denied access.  Several "models" that veer from the baseline have emerged from this messy cluster of appeal routes (See Figure 5).  
 Figure 5  
Route of Appeal (Binding)
Advice & Mediation
TM
North Carolina
Court appeal
None
I
Pennsylvania
Court appeal 
None
I
New Jersey
Court appeal (via common law)
None[51]
T
Arkansas
Court appeal
AG/ombudsman
T
Virginia
Court appeal
FOI Council (recent)
T
Georgia
Court appeal
AG mediation (recent)
IM
Connecticut
FOI Commission, Court appeal
FOI Commission
IM
Rhode Island
Court appeal, AG appeal
AG
M
Minnesota
Court appeal
Department of Administration
M
Wisconsin
Court appeal
None
I
Indiana
Court appeal
Public Access Counselor (recent)
I
Illinois
Administrative appeal, then court appeal
None


Weaker Than Baseline
ù	Common-Law Appeal.  Because New Jersey's open-records law was so restrictive from the outset, and left a set of stronger common-law rights intact, New Jersey has operated under a unique two-tier records law, with the common law generally serving as the basis for appeal.  On its face, this doesn't affect the structure of the process, but this end-run around the pitiful statutory law does not make the appeals process a user-friendly one.  It should be noted that the New Jersey press has considered this the only saving grace in their open-records edifice - and in June 2002 the state will be putting into place an independent FOI agency to mediate disputes, making the state "better-than-baseline."
ù	Administrative appeal.  This is an option in Rhode Island[52] and a requirement in Illinois[53] - and probably the worst component to add to the appeals process because it merely adds a bureaucratic step - making requesters appeal to the agency head - to an already unwieldy and intimidating process.  The fact that it is a required step before court appeal in Illinois makes its route of appeal significantly weaker than other states.[54]

Barely Above Baseline
ù	Attorney General.  This is the most common mechanism to insert into a baseline court-appeal provision because it utilizes an existing government office.  Indeed, attorney general "advisory opinions" are generally one of the key sources of law in the records-access landscape.  But ultimately, housing a step of the appeals process in the attorney general's office has seemed to have only a modest impact on access.  For one thing, some of these offices are only allowed to advise government officials about the law, not citizens or press - something that had frustrated Anne O'Connor when she worked in the Indiana Attorney General's office.  But even offices that can advise citizens are not perceived to be very effective.  The first of this 12 to institute something additional in the attorney general office was Arkansas (T), which has had an ombudsman there since the law was enacted in 1967; Georgia (T) placed its open-government mediation program in its attorney general's office 30 years later; and the Attorney General's office in Rhode Island (IM) has only been issuing advisory opinions for public bodies (not for citizens) since 1999.[55]  Not one of these has received more than neutral responses from the experts because of the impotence and inherent conflict of interest that comes with trying to represent agencies as clients, then turn around and slap them on the wrist for access violations.[56]

Better Than Baseline
ù	Independent State Agency.  Connecticut (IM) led the way with the first Freedom of Information Commission, and it the only one that actually functions as a binding route of appeal.[57]  Minnesota's (M) IPAD followed soon after, but did not include any binding legal authority.  This latter model has continued to constitute the shape of independent state agencies, and when the Virginia (T) and Indiana (I) legislatures created the Council and Counselor respectively, they too declined to give the offices more than advisory strength.  Indiana's Public Access Counselor does, however, has the strongest version of the advisory model, because of its tie to mandatory attorney fees if a requester does eventually have to pursue the case in court, and ultimately prevails. [58] 
Is there a pattern that ties the routes of appeal to political culture, time of enactment and/or geographical proximity?  Certainly not the latter, since there is not one pair that shares any route beyond baseline court appeal.  In terms of the other two factors, there does seem to be a very loose pattern.  Obviously, Minnesota (M) and Connecticut (IM) had the first two independent agencies, and the two worst routes of appeal are in two individualistic states, New Jersey and Illinois.  But beyond this, interviews with experts in these states seem to point to additional, idiosyncratic factors that brought about the variances in appellate routes.  Here too political culture acts as a backdrop for changes to the law, but it is merely one part of more complicated dynamics to be explored in another study.
3.	Penalties & Attorney Fees
Penalties for willful violation are an interesting component of open-records laws.  In the states that have them, experts say they are never levied against officials, clearly because there is a conflict of interest in having local judges fine their fellow government officials.  Even though they would usually be very small, experts say the penalty would be too construed as too hostile to slap on a fellow government official.[59]  As Figure 6 shows, the states without penalties are all primarily individualistic, except for North Carolina, which stays behind the curve from its fellow traditionalistic states because its law is still grounded in the 1935 statute.  The same cannot be said about Illinois and Indiana, however, even though their statutes were created in the 1980s.  There are two ways this might be explained.  For one, it is possible that by the 1980s, it was clear that penalties were not particularly effective anyway, and thus were not inserted into the law.  It is also possible a penalties clause was simply rejected in Indiana and Illinois because of contentious legislative dynamics.[60]  Although this is discussed further in the next chapter, there is certainly evidence that the legislatures in the four individualistic states are reluctant to create a structure that would penalize themselves or other government officials.  For now, however, it must suffice to point out a likely interaction between penalties and political culture, historical enactment and geographical proximity.
Figure 6
Penalties
TM
North Carolina
NO
I
Pennsylvania
NO
I
New Jersey
NO[61]
T
Arkansas
YES
T
Virginia
YES
T
Georgia
YES
IM
Connecticut
YES
IM
Rhode Island
YES
M
Minnesota
YES
M
Wisconsin
YES
I
Indiana
NO
I
Illinois
NO

Attorney fees, which are usually discretionary in the state laws, share the fate of penalties in that they are virtually never awarded.  So in terms of measurable practical impact, it would be hard to distinguish between a state with no attorney-fees provision and one with the provision.  But enough experts at least share the perception that penalties and attorney fees are important at a symbolic level,[62] that it warrants brief note.  (See Figure 7.)  Here too there is arguably a correlation between political culture and attorney fees, but it is not necessarily a positive correlation to access. 
Figure 7
Attorney Fees
TM
North Carolina
Discretionary - both ways (recent)
I
Pennsylvania
NONE
I
New Jersey
Discretionary - only up to $500
T
Arkansas
Discretionary (recent)
T
Virginia
Discretionary
T
Georgia
Discretionary
IM
Connecticut
Discretionary - both ways
IM
Rhode Island
Discretionary - both ways
M
Minnesota
Discretionary - both ways
M
Wisconsin
Mandatory
I
Indiana
Mandatory w/ PAC consultation (recent)
I
Illinois
Discretionary

The North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey laws did not have provisions for attorney fees when the laws were passed.  North Carolina added a provision in 1995, and it follows the model of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Minnesota - giving judges discretion to make either party pay attorney fees, in the citizen's case, if the judge determines the lawsuit was frivolous or brought in order to harass the government body.[63]  In practice, this is done as rarely as the other way.  It is merely symbolic, and - interestingly - symbolic of less access, not more.  In other words, it is primarily the states with moralistic political cultures that have placed within their laws a threat to the irresponsible or vindictive citizen - a move seems to be a step back from positive access.  Is there a moralistic rationale to explain this?  Perhaps.  It is possible that, with the concern for privacy that accompanied the enactments of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Minnesota came the notion that the state should in fact protect individual information in the face of other citizen and media attempts to co-opt it.  This would also make sense for the era in which North Carolina passed its amendment, for the 1990s brought concerns about computerization and privacy to a head around the nation.  
Also of note is the fact that Pennsylvania and New Jersey effectively have no attorney fee provisions - the $500-limit is a joke among the experts in New Jersey.[64]  Here again, it is the individualistic states that have been unable to reform the old law, whereas North Carolina - albeit only seven years ago - "fixed" its omission.  
The two statutes with real teeth, in terms of attorney fees, are Wisconsin and Indiana, which have mandatory attorney fees for prevailing requesters.[65]  Wisconsin, which has many years to witness the effectiveness of this mechanism, is clearly a stronger access state because of it.  Indiana recently built mandatory fees into its massive legislative overhaul as a piece of the Public Access Counselor system, providing a strong incentive to solicit help from the counselor's office by requiring consultation with the PAC in order to claim attorney fees down the line.  It is too early to determine how effective this choice was, but intuitively, it seems to have much promise.

I.	

The Cartography of Access
VI.	_ Combined with the Substance of Openness
The extent to which there is an assumption that all or most records are open - de jure or de facto - is clearly the heart of a state's access landscape.  And yet it is this component that defies comparative analysis more than any other.  It did in this study, certainly.  And apart from the obvious acknowledgement that Pennsylvania and New Jersey have remained locked in the old-style common-law parameters defining the scope of open records - i.e., there is no presumption of openness - this component on its own yielded little in the way of helpful comparative data.  Instead, the strongest way to address the "substantive" portion of this study is to step back and impressionistically assess openness by combining the substance with process, as well as the expert perceptions of these laws.   When put together, some patterns do indeed emerge, and they seem to support the hypothesis that political culture plays a role in open-records access - when combined with the other factors discussed in this paper.

A.	The Moralistic and Individualistic-Moralistic States
The moralistic state of Wisconsin, for example, is clearly the most open state in this study.  It is the only state that explicitly mandates not only a presumption of openness, but a presumption of "complete public access,"[66] and its statutory adamancy is bolstered by the expert descriptions of a state where openness has traditionally been a daily practice, not just legal rhetoric.  Its approach to making exceptions to the law - the balancing test - is uniquely flexible and surprisingly trusting of government agencies and officials.  Indeed, it is doubtful that it would work as well in all states because it actually does seem to depend in part upon what the experts call the "culture" of openness in Wisconsin, which bespeaks a somewhat greater degree of trust in the government. [67]   This thesis is supported by the fact that delays have historically not been a problem, despite the fact that Wisconsin's law does not mandate a specific time limit.  Wisconsin does, however, boast some of the best "teeth" in the study.  Court appeal is not an attractive route for citizens, but the mandatory attorney fees for prevailing requesters raise the stakes significantly for agencies.  And finally, to the surprise of its participants, and in spite of the damage that has been done by the devastating Woznicki case,[68] Wisconsin had fairly high compliance rates in its audit - the best of all 12 states.  (See Appendix A)
Connecticut's records compliance, on the other hand, was difficult to compare with the other states because there was little overlap in record type.  That said, the state did get the highest compliance on arrest records, which is notable as law enforcement is universally the most challenging type of government entity from which to gain records access.  It is also important to note that the three records requested by Connecticut auditors were challenging ones, which reflects the more aggressive tactics that might be expected from a state with a combination of individualistic and moralistic political cultures.  The standards were high in the Connecticut audit.  And perhaps they could afford to be.  With Mitch Pearlmann and the 27-year-old Freedom of Information Commission as a binding - and free - enforcement mechanism, Connecticut shares the "best teeth" award with Wisconsin.  It also has a strong presumption of openness, and - again, like Wisconsin - incorporates a balancing test for agencies to have some discretion about releasing information.  Connecticut experts are more critical of the daily reality than those in Wisconsin, but experts in both states say the laws have been weakened gradually, since their enactments, by encroaching privacy concerns and exemptions.[69]  
Indeed, because Wisconsin, Connecticut and Minnesota were ahead of the policy curve in their concern about computerization and privacy a quarter century ago, their access seems to have undergone a lengthier weakening process than those of other states.  This points up the likelihood that privacy - arguably just as important a value to a moralistic state as open government - would clearly be an additional variable to consider in any attempt to quantitatively correlate access with political culture.  
This is why Minnesota does not rank as high as its fellow moralistic state, Wisconsin.  It actually put privacy - or, more specifically, data fairness - ahead of access when it created its Data Practices Act.   Moreover, one might actually argue that Minnesota was actually too ambitious when it enacted the DPA.  "They seriously thought they were taking an innovative approach to all this stuff back then," noted RCFP Executive Director Lucy Dalglish, "and I think it's pretty much unworkable."[70]  This highlights the fact that Minnesota was indeed acting the part of a moralistic state in its innovative attempt to marry access with data fairness - unfortunately, that innovation did not lead to the strongest open-records law.  What keeps the Minnesota open-records landscape somewhat strong is Don Gemberling, or "Data Man" as one online magazine dubbed him, and the Information Policy Analysis Division staff.[71]  This longstanding office improves the access landscape because, like Connecticut's FOIC, it too is a free, citizen-accessible resource for requesters and officials.  But its opinions are non-binding and regularly disregarded by officials.[72]  
Moreover, the degree of user-unfriendliness in Minnesota's law - including its nine-part data classification system and the fact that IPAD is housed in a bureaucratic monolith called the Department of Administration - highlights an important factor in this analysis.  Attorneys like highly specific laws.  Journalists - not surprisingly - like them short and simple.  As a result, the contrast between journalistic perceptions of Minnesota's bureaucratic beast and Arkansas' classic Sigma Delta Chi law, for example, is very much about style.  Although its creators and attorneys will defend the DPA - they argue that its specificity is an airtight contract for access[73] - the state's journalists complain that it is overly complex and mostly unfathomable.[74]  And indeed, the preference for a simple statute seems particularly logical when applied to access laws, which would seem to have a unique obligation to be accessible so non-lawyers can use them.  As such, it should not be surprising that Minnesota's records audit was not the most impressive of the 12.  Although it reported strong compliance for city council meeting minutes and superintendent salaries, it scored lower than both Illinois and Arkansas for county jail logs - and certainly privacy concerns cannot be the underlying dynamic there.
Rhode Island also failed to distinguish itself in law-enforcement compliance, although it too ranked high in its other categories.  It should also be noted that the requesters were college students in the Rhode Island audit - as many of them were in the Connecticut audit.[75]  Indeed, the overall sense of access in Rhode Island is that of a state that is similar, but not as successful, in achieving the access successes of neighboring Connecticut.  The Rhode Island experts consider the substance of their law - the presumption of openness - to be "liberal" and strong, but they have been unable to insert a Connecticut-like balancing test in their privacy exemption for two legislative sessions now.[76]  Like Connecticut, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the concern with privacy has been weighed against access in the law - in the statement of legislative intent - for more than two decades.  Also similar to Connecticut is the strong sense of criticism about the reality of access in their state; the experts are in fact quick to point out structural conflicts of interest and cultures of closure in various places.[77]  The route of appeal that goes through the attorney general's office, for example, is looked upon with something that borders contempt.  In this particularly, Rhode Island's individualistic culture seems to come through even more strongly than in Connecticut - perhaps because Rhode Island has not been able to create an FOI structure like Connecticut's to circumvent some of the cynical applications of the law.  
Overall, the moralistic states in this study, as well as the individualistic-moralistic states, seem to have been ahead of the curve in terms of their substantive open-records landscapes.  They have long wrestled with balancing two opposing values of access and privacy, and have done so within their respective open-records laws since the 1970s - earlier than most other states.  The laws of Wisconsin, Connecticut and Minnesota also demonstrate more innovation - for better or worse - at an earlier stage than the other states in this study.  In Wisconsin, the balance of a straightforward law and a perceived culture of openness made access strong until it was weakened by one reviled court case.  Connecticut, with its unique commission, has seemed to experience a more dramatic statutory weakening because of privacy, but its initial statute remains a strong one.  In Minnesota the fact that privacy beat access to the legislative punch line has hurt the latter in spite of a culture that is otherwise perceived as both open and "clean."  The ambitious complexity of the law has also hurt its accessibility to the state's press and citizens.  And Rhode Island demonstrates a stronger portion of the individualistic culture in perceptions and realities of access law, in part because stronger structural mechanisms are needed to soften the effect of "dirty politics" in the form of conflicts of interest that frustrate the state's FOI experts.  
 
B.	The Individualistic States
Elazar's typology has Indiana and Illinois labeled as individualistic states, although his map shows each of the three cultures running across the top, middle and lower portion of the two states, respectively.  These two states were apparently a gateway for all three migratory patterns that Elazar correlated with the three political cultures.  Sharkansky's scale, on the other hand, strongly distinguishes between the two in that the Illinois 'score' (4.72) is actually much closer to the decidedly individualistic state, Pennsylvania (4.28), than it is to Indiana (6.33).  This may make sense in part because of the cultural and political weight of Chicago - a city whose traditional machine politics have epitomized the individualistic orientation to the state.  In this study, Illinois did in fact appear more like other individualistic states than Indiana, whose open-records law bears some resemblance to those in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Journalist Bill Theobald called the Indiana access landscape "mixed and ever shifting,"[78] which fits the history and components of the state's open-records law.  The Indiana Access to Public Records Act, for example, contains mandatory exemptions, similar to Minnesota, that come with fines for disclosure - yet another nod to privacy concerns.  Indiana can also boast a fairly strong level of innovation, not only because it passed the reform that created the Public Access Counselor advisory position - something that only a handful of states can boast - but also because it tied this position to mandatory attorney fees for prevailing requesters if they ultimately have to appeal within the court system,[79] adopting these teeth that only a few states, like the neighboring Wisconsin, have.  This, along with a strong statement of legislative intent, presumption of openness and the 24-hour limit, seem to indicate a fairly strong level of access.  But the time provision is also buried in the back of a law that experts consider badly organized and badly interpreted by the courts.[80]  Moreover, repeated flirtations with legislative exemptions have certainly not strengthened the perception of openness in the state.[81]  When Indiana conducted the first statewide records audit, its compliance rates were also perceived as low - particularly from law enforcement, which averaged 33 percent.  Compared to later audits, the law enforcement rates were still fairly low, and the rest were average.   In short, Indiana seems to be a mixed bag in terms of access.  
Its neighboring state demonstrates a much lower perception of records access.  The Illinois Freedom of Information Act, with its occasional Jeckyll and Hyde tone, seems to give, then take away, access within the statutory text.[82]  But more dramatic is the apparent disconnect between the law and reality.  Some experts will not even grant that the law's presumption of openness is an operational concept, and journalists use the courts to "fix" ambiguities in the law with apparent regularity.[83]  Moreover, the seven-day limit with the seven-day grace period - which adds up to a systematic 14-day wait - highlights a consistently cynical application of the law.  Then the administrative appeal solidifies that delay with a structural one.  In short, things in Illinois seem fairly bleak, despite a law that looks merely average.  And thus it may be surprising that the Illinois audit had above average compliance rates, and scored substantially higher than Indiana on the same records.  The 61-percent compliance rate on jail logs was particularly good compared to other states.  
Audit results from the second set of individualistic states, on the other hand, were quite reflective of the statutes and perceptions of openness in those states.  It is common knowledge that Pennsylvania and New Jersey have long vied for the dubious distinction of having the worst open-records law.  Neither "Right to Know" statute has included a statement of legislative intent or a definition of "public record" that creates a presumption of openness.[84]  The two old-style laws are short and vague, and appealing a denial will be a costly venture with no hope of attorney fees or penalties.  Pennsylvania requesters are systematically overcharged,[85] New Jersey requesters face indefinite delays - neither state has ever had a time-limit provision - and generally, the experts in both states simply say their respective "Right to Know" laws are altogether dreadful.[86]  In New Jersey, an almost institutionalized 12-year-old campaign for reform barely made it through the legislature at the session's close on January 8, 2002,[87] and Pennsylvania's attempt was ultimately thwarted once again by a legislature that has always exempted itself from the law anyway.
It was hypothesized that individualistic states would have weaker access to public records, and it may just be a convenient accident that two of the worst state laws in the nation represented pure individualistic states in this study.  That said, Illinois certainly fits the bill as well, with its administrative appeal and a generally unclear law that fails to provide a presumption of openness.  Moreover, both Illinois and New Jersey - superceding geographical disparities - have separate laws that exclusively grant journalists a right to law enforcement records that the public does not have - something that goes against the grain of "freedom of information" rhetoric that journalists have been using for over half a century now.  Experts acknowledge this, but argue that it is the only way to get access in systems that are otherwise too closed for a fourth estate to function. [88]  The New Jersey media's traditional dependence upon the common law as an appeal mechanism highlights this same trend.  In short, three of the four individualistic states seem to fit the expectation that access would be lower in practice, and generally a more contentious battle for the press.  That Indiana seems to be slightly different - ahead of the other three in terms of law, landscape and the timing of its reforms - may be linked to the migratory "deposits" of the three political cultures that Elazar mapped upon its terrain or the proximity to the moralistic states of Michigan and Wisconsin.  Illinois has these as well but, as Sharkansky's scale highlighted, there does seem to be a greater gap between the two than Elazar's typology granted them.  

C.	The Traditionalistic States
When North Carolina passed its first open-records law in 1935, it was ahead of the curve nationally, and this move separates it from the path of the other traditionalistic states in this study.  Indeed, North Carolina is the only state of these four that was coded by Elazar as a traditionalistic-moralistic state.  When other states, including Arkansas, Georgia and Virginia, were passing their post-FOIA open-records laws, North Carolina updated its law somewhat, but did not choose to completely overhaul it like the moralistic states did.  In the last 25 years it has gradually updated a number of the gaps separating it from the post-FOIA and modern laws,[89] but it still bears the marks of its age - particularly with only four exemptions actually listed within the law (and many in other statutes) and its stubborn lack of a time-limit provision.  Nevertheless, the law has a strong presumption of openness and a perception that openness has been improving over the years.  North Carolina also had the highest compliance rate for incident reports, and average rates for most other records requested, all of which were average difficulty.  The only records that requesters were not able to get were concealed-weapon applications, a difficult record that county sheriffs uniformly refused to release.
Neighboring Virginia did not pass its open-records law as early as North Carolina, but the one it passed in 1968 was stronger.  In its current form, it has a five-day time limit, a "reasonable" copying-charge restriction, a strong presumption of openness and a mandate that only records that are "specifically made exempt" by the FOIA or another law can be withheld from requesters.[90]  In other words, Virginia has taken the specific, concrete-exemption approach to its records law - similar to Florida or Minnesota - by listing numerous but narrow exemptions within its statute.  Again, this can be construed as a good or bad component of the law, depending on whether one is an attorney or journalist.  Virginia's new independent FOI Council, however, is a solid mark of openness.  And, like North Carolina, the perception is that there is something of a disconnect between the "lofty intent" of the law[91] and the day to day reality, but there is also consensus that both law and reality have improved in recent years.[92]  The Virginia audit showed relatively good compliance except for incident reports - which have only recently become public record - and coaches' salaries, which showed a dismal 47 percent compliance.  
While perceptions in North Carolina and Virginia are that access is improving, the assessments in Georgia and Arkansas are more mixed.  Georgia has arguably experienced a strengthening of the law by adding more specificity - through both legislative and judicial channels - into the Public Records Act.  In addition to the hardening of the three-day rule, it is particularly interesting that the courts threw out a practice of giving records custodians fairly wide discretion to deny requests for various public policy reasons and insisted that Georgia begin following a more direct path of narrowly legislated exemptions.[93]  Here again, this has raised the ire of some journalists, who see the increase in statutory length as per se closure.[94]  Even with this change, though, the experts say the application of their law is problematic across the board - and the statute itself is on the lower end of average, without a statement of legislative intent or a statutorily articulated presumption of openness.[95]  The Georgia records audit showed a comparatively good compliance for incident reports, but not for superintendent contracts, which scored the same as Virginia's coach salaries - 47 percent.  
Arkansas did much better on superintendent contracts, reporting a 72-percent compliance.  Requesters also managed to see 61 percent of county jail logs, which was on the upper end of the average for this study.  And overall, this state - the most traditionalistic of all states, according to Sharkansky's scale - has one of the best open-records laws in this study - at least, in perception.[96]  Its near completeness from its enactment has made the experts extremely protective of it.  As a result, it has not been improving or deteriorating much over the years because it has simply not changed over the years.  And the biggest change it has undergone - the Electronic Records Act - is one that provokes only neutral to negative responses.[97]  
Three of the traditionalistic states in this study followed the lead of the federal government's FOIA, and their laws reflect this, generally possessing the classic lines of the federal format.  North Carolina and Virginia give a slightly different impression from the other two, North Carolina because it had an early passage of its law - then balked at completely overhauling it later - and the Virginia because it has shown strong legislative innovation in the last quarter century, and has chosen the more specific in-statute route.  Notably, the two share geographical borders and a stronger influence of moralistic culture, according to Elazar's mapping.  Arkansas and Georgia, on the other hand, seem to have clear and conventional statutes, combined with an average sense of access, although Arkansas is clearly the stronger of the two, historically and currently.  Something that is clearly shared by these states - in contrast to the moralistic states - is that the open-records access has been improving, not deteriorating.  This may support the notion that the moralistic states are, if nothing else, on a different - earlier - cycle than the traditionalistic states.  
As for the audits, which showed little in terms of compliance trends, it was noteworthy that, of the four, only North Carolina asked for any record that broke from the mold of meeting minutes, budgets, contracts and basic law enforcement records.  The North Carolina requesters also tried to get concealed weapon permits and cell-phone reports for the city and town managers - both of which were somewhat different and more challenging than the classic records in these audits.  On the whole, the traditionalistic states in this study are moderate in their records access.  The specificity issue in Georgia - and the specific route Virginia has taken in its exemption format - may provoke the question of whether the looser balancing approach that's desired and possessed in the moralistic states would ever be appropriate in traditionalistic states.  

VII.	  Conclusion
Are there intersections between political culture and open-records laws and realities?  This study would seem to indicate a moderately affirmative answer.  Certainly the examination of these 12 state open-records laws seems to support the notion that moralistic states are "early adopters" of policies that are closely tied to the commonwealth conception of the state - i.e., those in which citizens work toward shared goals based on moral principles.  In this case, however, the relevant policies derive from two competing principles: access and privacy.  Moreover, there are too many similarities between states that are geographically close to each other to overlook the notion of simple innovation by geography as an additional factor - although this too may be tied in with political culture, which is based on geographical migration patterns.  What seems clear, regardless, is that a stronger quantitative assessment is more likely if it includes the additional factors of geography, the law's age (or era of enactment), and some kind of additional measure that more fully grasps the question of how long privacy has been a competing issue in the state.  Clearly, the "outputs" - legislatively and in the records audits - don't tell the whole story of access in these states.  What they do achieve is the beginning of perhaps a new and more creative way to examine the ways that access laws and innovations can be achieved at the state level - something the experts in these states are clearly seeking.  

The Cartography of Access
Appendix A  - Records Audits

Arkansas 
requested records
percentage
County jail logs
61%
School district superintendents' contracts	
72%
City revenue reports
87%
Restaurant health reports
51%


Georgia 
requested records
percentage
Incident reports (sheriff's office)
50%
Incident reports (police station)
62%
School district superintendents' contracts
47%
State college/university crime logs
86%
City council meeting minutes
93%
County commission minutes
89%


North Carolina 
requested records
percentage
Concealed weapon permit applications (sheriff's office)
0%
Incident reports (police office)
65%
Coaches' salaries
64%
Town/city managers' expense & cell-phone reports
59%
Restaurant health reports
67%


Virginia
requested records
percentage
Incident reports (police or sheriff's office)
16%
School violence reports
72%
Coaches' salaries 
47%
City manager travel vouchers
73%
Restaurant health reports
88%


Indiana
requested records
compliance rate
percentage
crime log (sheriff's office)
44%
incident reports (sheriff's office)
22%
school board meeting minutes
86%
coaches salaries
72%
death certificates (county health department)
75%


Illinois
requested records
percentage
county jail logs (sheriff's office)
61%
school district superintendent's travel vouchers
82%
city council meeting minutes 
94%
list of public documents - county
N/A
list of public documents - city
N/A
list of public documents - school district
N/A


New Jersey
requested records
percentage
crime logs
22%
school district budgets
69%
school district superintendent contracts
31%
school district employee salaries
48%
municipal overtime records
57%
municipal line-by-line budgets
87%


Pennsylvania
requested records
percentage
crime logs
22%
school district principal salaries
68%
county meeting minutes
100%
county commissioner phone records (long-distance bill)
70%
cc of animal control ordinance (municipal)
96%

Rhode Island
requested records
percentage
crime logs (police office)	
~ 35%
arrest reports (for cases not under investigation)
~ 35%
school district meeting agendas & minutes 
~ 94%
school district budgets
~ 94%
school district / teacher's union contract settlement
82%
school committee policy manuals
~ 94%
city council meeting agendas & minutes
100%
municipal budgets
100%


Connecticut
requested records
percentage
arrest reports   _ based on the study's more stringent standards: 22%
66%
teacher attendance records    _ based on the study's more stringent standards: 10%
20%
marriage license applications   _ based on the study's more stringent standards: 37%
58%


Wisconsin
requested records
percentage
crime logs    _ 38% without getting hassled
82%
coaches salaries
93%
school board meeting minutes 
99%
county board member reimbursement reports
96%
annual legal expenses for city
88%


Minnesota
requested records
percentage
jail log (sheriff's office)
43%
superintendent's salary and benefits
72%
city council meeting minutes
71%

Appendix B - Phone Interviews

Arkansas
John Watkins, U of Arkansas law school professor  
Dennis Schick, executive director of Arkansas Press Association 
Dennis Byrd, Little Rock bureau chief for Donrey Media Group (audit)
Brenda Blagg, reporter for the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas
Carol Griffee, dean of the Capitol Press Corps 
Robert Fisher, FOI ombudsman out of Attorney General's office
Milton Scott, APA lobbyist  	
	

Georgia
Holly Manheimer, executive director of Georgia First Amendment Foundation 
Peter Canfield, lawyer at Dow Lohnes & Albertson, GFAF board member
Tom Bennett, SPJ sunshine chair, Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor
Mike Burbach, executive director of Ledger-Enquirer (audit)
Kent Middleton, University of Georgia journalism professor  
Attorney General's office


North Carolina
Anders Gyllenhaal, executive director of Raleigh News & Observer, chair of ASNE's FOI commission
Mike Tadych, counsel to the North Carolina Press Association, Everett, Gaskins, Hancock & Stevens
Hugh Stevens, partner at Everett, Gaskins, Hancock & Stevens
Terry Sailor, executive director of the North Carolina Press Association
Sue Price Wilson, AP bureau chief in Raleigh
Chip Wilson, SPJ sunshine chair, reporter at the Charlotte Observer


Virginia
Mariah J.K. Everett, executive director of the Virginia FOI Advisory Council
John Denniston, former assistant Virginia editor for the Times-Dispatch (project editor for audit)
Will Corbin, editor of the Daily Press, chair of FOIA Project (audit)
Richard Hammerstrom, SPJ sunshine chair, Free-Lance Star reporter 
Frosty Landon, director of Virginia Coalition for Open Government
Harry Hammitt, ACCESS Reports  	
Dorothy Abernathy, AP bureau chief 	


Indiana
Bill Theobald, Indianapolis Star, former co-chair of FOIndiana
Kyle Niederpruem, Indianapolis Star & News reporter (?), founder of FOIndiana, big player in SPJ 
Stephen Key, Hoosier State Press Association attorney
Julia Vaughn, policy director for Common Cause, Indiana Coalition for Open Government
Anne Mullins O'Connor, public access counselor
Larry Lough, SPJ sunshine chair, editor of the Star Press
Don Asher, deputy executive director of the Times of Northwest Indiana (audit)


Illinois
Beth Bennett, SPJ sunshine chair, lobbyist for Illinois Press Assn
Dana Heuple, State-Journal Register reporter (coordinated audit)	
Chris Wills, AP reporter (wrote most of the audit stories)
Don Craven, first amendment lawyer	
Jim Howard, Common Cause 
Attorney General office		
Pennsylvania
Garry Lenton, Patriot-News reporter (audit)
Kara Been, director of government affairs for Penn Newspaper Assn
Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause
Bill Northrup, Washington Observer publisher (audit)
Susan Schwartz, SPJ sunshine chair, Press Enterprise reporter


New Jersey
Michael Diamond, SPJ sunshine chair, Press of Atlantic City special reports unit writer (audit)
Debbie Mohammad, Common Cause communication director
Roxanne, New Jersey Citizens for Action
Douglas Krisburg, New Jersey FOG, co-founder and vice president of interim board
Ron Miskoff, chair of SPJ's New Jersey chapter, owner of Media Trends (produces newspapers)
Joe Tyrell, SPJ sunshine chair, New Jersey FOG co-founder, Star-Ledger reporter
Janon Fisher, Herald News reporter
Paul D'Ambrosio, Asbury Park Press reporter (audit)
John O'Brien, executive director of New Jersey Press Association 
Tom Cafferty, counsel for NJ Press Assn and NJ Newspaper Network


Connecticut
Mitch Pearlmann, Connecticut FOI Commission
Stephanie Reitz, SPJ sunshine chair
Joy Heinlein, editorial page editor for Stanford Advocate	
Michael Collins, FOI Foundation president	
Chris Powell, managing editor of the Manchester Journal-Inquirer	


Rhode Island
Staci Sawyer, counsel for Providence Journal (Blish & Cavenaugh), ACCESS/RI treasurer
Steve Brown, ACLU	
Phil West, Common Cause	
Ross Cheit, Brown University professor (audits)	
Kathleen Odean, librarian, new president of ACCESS/RI
Attorney General's office	


Wisconsin
J.J. Blonien, SPJ sunshine chair, publisher of the Milwaukee Post
Sandra George, executive director of Wisconsin Newspaper Association (audit) 	
Dave Zweifel, editor of the Capital Times of Madison, on Wisconsin FOI Council	
Mark Stodder, legislative chairman for the newspaper association	
Jeff Hovind, president of FOI Council 	
Lee Hughes, AP reporter, involved in audit, on FOI council
George Stanley, managing editor of Milwaukee Journal Sentinal	
		

Minnesota
Doug Glass, AP news editor in Minneapolis (directed audit)
Jim Walsh, Star Tribune reporter	
Don Gemberling, director of the Info Policy Analysis Division of Minn Dept of Administration	
Mark Anfinson, counsel for the Minnesota Press Association	
Gary Hill, KSPP in St. Paul (audit participant)	
Lucy Dalglish, Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press
John Finnegan, UM professor, former editor, founder of Joint Media Commitee


Rebecca Daugherty, Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press	
Endnotes
[1]  	E-mail from Rebecca Daugherty, posted on the "FOI-L" listserv, January 16, 2001.
[2]   	The one exception is access to criminal trials, which was explicitly guaranteed in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555 (1980).  Scholars who have discussed the issue of a constitutional right of access include David M. O'Brien. The Public's Right to Know: The Supreme Court and the First Amendment. New York: Praeger, 1981 and Wallace Parks, The Open Government Principle: Applying the Right to Know Under the Constitution. 26 George Washington L. Rev. 1 (1967).
[3]  	List articles that examine one state.
[4]  	Note: Open Meeting Statutes: The Press Fights for the 'Right to Know'. 75 Harvard L. Rev. 1199, 1962.  See also William R. Wright. Comment: Open Meetings Laws: An Analysis and a Proposal. 45 Mississippi L. J. 1151, (1974); Government Information and the Rights of Citizens.  39 Mich. L. Rev. 1480 (1975).
[5]  	Burt A. Braverman and Wesley R. Heppler. A Practical Review of State Open Records Laws. 49 George Washington L. Rev. 720 (1981).
[6]  	Ibid., at 757.
[7]  	See www.rcfp.org/tapping.index.
[8]  	Pritchard, D. and Nemeth, N., Predicting Content of State Public Records Laws.  10 Newspaper Research Journal 45 (1989).
[9]   	Daniel J. Elazar, The American Mosaic: The Impact of Space, Time, and Culture on American Politics. Boulder, CO:  Westview Press, Inc., 1994, 214.
[10]   	Sharkansky, 83.
[11]   	Dran, et al., 15.
[12]  	Ibid., p. 215-16.  Elazar points out that the streams are not ethnic groups themselves.  In fact, he argues, the term "streams" was used in order to get beyond the limitations of the ethnic-group concept, "which do not account for the linkages that form between groups, particularly after they have acculturated."
[13]  	 Elazar, 131.
[14]   	Sharkansky; Timothy D. Schiltz and R. Lee Rainey. The Geographic Distribution of Elazar's Political Subcultures Among the Mass Population: A Research Note. 31 Western Political Quarterly, 1978, 410-415; Charles A. Johnson. Political Culture in the American States: Elazar's Formulation Examined. 20 American Journal of Political Science, 1976, 491-509; Russell Hanson, Political Culutre, Interparty Competition and Political Efficacy in the American States. 10 Publius, 1980, 17-36.
[15]   	Leonard G. Ritt. Political Cultures and Political Reform: A Research Note. 4 Publius 1987, 127-133.
[16]  	 Ritt, supra note 15.  See also David R. Morgan and Sheilah S. Watson. Political Culture, Political System Characteristics, and Public Policies Among the American States. 21 Publius 1991, 31-47.  Morgan and Watson found that the contextual effects of political culture showed less than they had hoped.  But they also found no evidence to suggest that political subcultures deteriorated, or were diluted, over time - something critics had suspected.  In their 1991 study, Morgan and Watson found that the religious foundations of the typology had remained strong over the century. They also found that moralistic states have more interparty competition, higher voter turnout, more policy-relevant parties, and more liberal and innovative policies than the other two subcultures.  Another study also found a connection between political culture and interparty competition, as well as political efficacy.  And like Ritt, Hanson was able to show that political culture was an explanatory variable independent of other factors, in this case, with regard to different policy adoptions between the moralistic and traditionalistic cultures.  See Hanson, surpra. note 14.
[17]  	Charles A. Johnson. Political Culture in the American States: Elazar's Formulation Examined. 20 American Journal of Political Science, 1976, 508.
[18]   	Pritchard & Nemeth, 47.
[19]  	Ibid.  The researchers didn't actually code for all three cultures, but rather coded "1" for 16 moralistic states and "0" for all the other states.  The 16 states coded as moralistic were: California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.  
[20]   	Harold Cross, The People's Right to Know, 5.
[21]  	Undertaking the statutory section of the study is done with some tentativeness, as there is currently a four-year study being undertaken by the Brechner Center, under the leadership of Professor Bill Chamberlin and a host of FOI experts, who are attempting a full comparative analysis of the statutory texts.  That said, this study's approach is fairly different, and hopes merely to complement the larger analysis being done by the Brechner Center.
[22]  	The components considered in this chapter are similar to the 16 provisions in Pritchard and Nemeth's quantitative analysis.  They were condensed in part by what was deemed important to substantive access by the experts interviewed for this study.  See David Pritchard and Neil Nemeth. Predicting the content of state public records laws. 45 Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 1989, 45-58.
[23]  	Pritchard and Nemeth actually differentiated between political culture and "policy liberalism," and found that the latter did indeed show a weak (.24) correlation with open-records score.  This probably needs to be teased out more in a later draft.  (i.e., maybe after this dissertation is defended).
[24]    	Daniel Elazar, American Mosaic, p. 219.
[25]  	Burt A. Braverman and Wesley R. Heppler.  A Practical Review of State Open Records Laws. 49 George Washington L. Rev. 720 (1981), 757.
[26]  	This was particularly true of Connecticut, which modeled its audit on that of Rhode Island, and Illinois, in which the audit organizers actually knew those in Indiana.  
[27]  	Cite Sharkansky again.
[28]  	See Public Records Law (N.C. Gen. Stat.   132-1 through 132-9, 1990); New Jersey Right to Know Law (N.J. Stat. Ann. 47:1A-1, 1963); Pennsylvania Open Records Law (65 Pa. Cons. Stat.   66.2 through 66.5, 1957).
[29]  	See Tapping Officials' Secrets, North Carolina "Forward."  www.rcfp.tapping/northcarolina.
[30]  	Public Records Act   132-1b, 6a, 9c.
[31]  	New Jersey has, of course, finally reformed its law as of January 2002.
[32]  	See Robert S. McCord, Rockefeller Signed FOI Act in 1967, The FOIArkansas Project, 1999.
[33]  	Ark. Code Ann.  25-19-105(a)(1); O.C.G.A.  50-18-70(b); Va. Code Ann.  1-18 and 1-20.
[34]  	This has apparently been a bigger issue in Georgia, where an official at the attorney general's office admitted it was sometimes embarrassing when she was caught not knowing about an exemption.  Phone interview, March 4, 2002.
[35]  	John J. Watkins. 2001 Amendments to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.  Unpublished report, 2001.  Sent to the author by Professor Watkins in May 2001.  See also Peter Mantius, Barns signs two measures expanding records laws, The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, April 29, 1999; Lucy Soto. Spotlight: Agencies make their own rules on open records; despite changes in the law, governments are finding various ways to erect roadblocks for citizens.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 14, 2000; New public records law will benefit taxpayers. The Herald-Sun, July 16, 1995 (Changes mentioned by the experts include (as quoted in Tapping): "provisions defining particular criminal information as public information; a prohibition of asking a requester for what purpose he seeks a record [see next paragraph]; a requirement that agencies maintain indexes of their databases; a narrower definition of 'actual cost' of producing a public record; and better judicial remedies for violations of the law.")
[36]  	Phone interviews with Don Gemberling, director of the Information Policy Analysis Division of Minnesota Department of Administration (November 20, 2001) and John Finnegan, University of Minnesota professor, former editor, founder of Joint Media Committee (November 23, 2001).  Both men were part of the process that created the DPA.
[37]  	R. I. Gen. Laws   38-2-1 and 5 ILCS 140/1 (from Ch. 116, par. 201).
[38]  	Conn. Gen. Stat  1-20(a) and Wisc. Gen. Stat.  19.35(1)(am)(2), as well as State ex rel. Youmans v. Owens, 28 Wis. 2d at 681.
[39]  	Minn. Stat.   13.08, Subd. 1 and 13.09; Ind. Code  5-14-3-4(a) and (b).
[40]  	Based on Pritchard and Nemeth's coding of the RCFP's Tapping Officials' Secrets.
[41]  	Conn. Gen. Stat.  1-206(a); O.C.G.A.  50-18-70(f); Va. Code Ann.  2.2-3704(B)(1); 5 ILCS 140/3(c); Ind. Code  5-14-3-9.
[42]  	Minn. Stat.  13.03, The Wisconsin balancing test is not actually mentioned in the statute, although a version of it is articulated for records that are identifiable to individuals (Wisc. Gen. Stat. 19.35(4)(a)); instead, it is pulled in via the statement that incorporates the common-law tradition into the codified version: "Substantive common law principles construing the right to inspect, copy or receive copies of records shall remain in effect."   19.35(1)(a).
[43]  	Woznicki v. Erickson, 202 Wis. 2d at 191-93.  In April 1994, St. Crox County prosecutors charged a New Richmond teacher, Thomas Woznicki, of having consensual sex with a minor, and subpoenaed his personnel files from the school.  Although the charges were dropped three months later, a new conflict developed when the girl's father requested the personnel files, and Woznicki filed for an injunction to keep them sealed.  Ultimately the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that he had a right to be notified that his files had been requested and given an opportunity to sue for non-disclosure.  The high court later expanded its Woznicki decision in two directions, broadening the scope of records custodians implicated and of records themselves, from personnel records to any and all records that might affect "the privacy and/or reputational interests" of employees.  On top of the de jure broadening of Woznicki, however, was an even more troublesome de facto broadening by records custodians, who became overcautious and started "Woznicki-ing" records that identified anyone - not just government employees.  And thus agencies have often, for the last five years or so, been notifying individuals whose names appear in a requested record and giving them time to appeal the disclosure. "We've actually had people say they couldn't release petitions until they gave a Woznicki notice to everyone who signed the petition," said George Stanley, managing editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, "which is ridiculous." (Phone interview, January 15, 2002.)  Richards v. Foust actually foreshadowed Woznicki when, in 1991, the Court ruled that an inmate couldn't sue the district attorney for the investigation records on his case because they were closed under Wisconsin's common law.  See 165 W (2d) 429, 477 NW (2d) 608 (1991).  See also Milwaukee Teachers' Education Assn. v. Milwaukee Board of School Directors, 220 W (2d) 93, 582 NW (2d) 122 (Ct. App. 1998).
[44]  	See Cathy Packer et al., Access to Government Meetings and Records: A Survey of North Carolina Reporters' Problems (March 1994 - unpublished manuscript), at 20.  The survey found, among other things, that state and local officials often delayed responding to reporters' requests for records.  Cited in Thomas H. Moore, You Can't Always Get What You Want: North Carolina Public Records Law, 72 N.C.L. Rev., 1527 (September 1994), n. 21.  Phone interviews: Barry Kauffmann, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania (October 29, 2001), who listed time limits in his top-three wish list for an improved law - it was number four on Bill Northrup's list (publisher of the Washington Observer, October 29, 2001 phone interview).  In New Jersey, Janon Fisher (Herald News reporter, November 2, 2001 phone interview) said agencies "will promise me that they're working on it, and they will also remind me that they're not violating any law in taking that long.  So that enables an agency to be a little bit disingenuous_."
[45]  	House Bill 279 made the following changes to Georgia's open records and meetings laws: 1) It tightened the 3-day rule, requiring officials to release the records within three days except in extraordinary circumstances, and making them provide a written explanation for the delay or denial.  2) It made violations of the law a misdemeanor, carrying a $100 fine.  3) It subjected private firms that carry out government functions to make their records public.  4) It required most public records on computer files to be published on the Internet.
[46]  	Va. Code Ann.  2.1-342(B).
[47]  	Access delayed _ again, Providence Journal, August 13, 2001.
[48]  	See Christopher Thorne, Does the FOI law slow down access to public records? The Associated Press, July 26, 1999.  Thorne interviewed Steve Helle, a University of Illinois media law professor, who said this had been a concern of the media since the FOIA's inception.  From the beginning, he said, journalists suspected the time limit would serve as a device for denying access, or at least delaying it.  From phone interviews:  Agencies often tell requesters that "they're just swamped," said First Amendment lawyer Don Craven, "and that they don't have time to respond to all those requests, that they have other things to do."  (November 21, 2001 phone interview).  Dana Heuple, a State-Journal Register reporter who has worked in California as well, said the laws seem fairly similar, except that, in Illinois, the FOIA "is often used as a stalling tactic.  In other [places], if you ask for something that's public record and they knew it was public record, they often gave it to you.  Here, [the delay] may well keep us from doing the story in a timely fashion.  That happens more often here than anywhere else I've worked." (November 15, 2001 phone interview).
[49]  	See supra note 45.
[50]  	This is also true of Rhode Island.  The attorney general's office has had very few complaints about charges, whereas there have been substantial ones concerning delays.  Phone interview, December 6, 2001.  (Note: All officials from attorney general offices were reluctant to go on record for this study.)
[51]  	New Jersey will have a mediation agency when its 2002 amendments go into effect this summer.
[52]  	R.I. Gen. Laws  38-2-8.
[53]  	5 ILCS 140/10.
[54]  	The appeal entails filing a complaint with the head of the agency, who will then have another 14 days to decide whether or not to overrule the initial denial.  As might be expected, the denials usually stand.  In fact, attorney Don Craven said that his 20 years of legal work in Illinois, he has never seen a denial overruled within the administrative-appeal process.  "It's a useless act," he said, "but a time consuming act." (November 21, 2001 phone interview)   Yet it is only after this act that requesters can file a lawsuit "in the circuit court for the county where the public body has its principal office or where the person denied access resides."  ( 11(b))   This is, of course, generally an entire month after the initial request was made.
[55]  	The law allows citizens to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office (R.I. Gen. Laws  38-2-8(b)).  According to an official in the AG's office, the office investigates and either finds the record to not be public, or -in its investigation - pressures the agency to rethink its refusal.  One once in the past three years has an investigation gone as far as a legal filing - and this was dropped once the agency complied.  The advisory opinions were the prerogative of the current AG, Sheldon Whitehouse, not mandated by law.  Phone interview, December 6, 2001.
[56]  	In Georgia, for example, attorney Hollie Manheimer (also executive director of the state FOI group, Georgia First Amendment Foundation) said nothing has changed since the attorney general's office began its mediation program.  (May 14, 2001 phone interview)  See also Lucy Soto. Spotlight: Agencies make their own rules on open records; despite changes in the law, governments are finding various ways to erect roadblocks for citizens.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 14, 2000.  
[57]  	Conn. Gen. Stat.  1-21(j).
[58]  	Ind. Code  5-14-3-9(h).
[59]  	Phone interviews with Mariah Everett, executive director of the Virginia FOI Advisory Council (July 23, 2001); Hollie Manheimer (supra note 57); Beth Bennett, SPJ sunshine chair and lobbyist for the Illinois Press Association (September 28, 2001); etcetera.
[60]  	This is the argument, for example, of Beth Bennett, supra note 60, and Jim Howard, former director of Common Cause Illinois (January 11, 2002).
[61]  	New Jersey will have penalties when its 2002 amendments go into effect this summer.
[62]  	See, for example, Kyle Neiderpruem, Indianapolis Star & News reporter and former national SPJ president, who argued that, "whether or not they're invoked _ they do seem to act slightly as a hammer in other states_.  It is a deterrent, in fact."  Phone interview, October 21, 2001.  See also interview with Paul D'Ambrosio, supra note 65: "It's a good stick to hold over someone's head."
[63]  	N.C. Gen. Stat.  132-9(d).
[64]  	Example: "No one ever imposes that, and no one ever asks for it because it is just a joke.  That's, like, an hour and a half of a lawyer's time_.  We asked for it a couple times, and the judge said, 'I won't do it now, but if it comes back, I may do it.'"  Phone interview with Paul D'Ambrosio, Asbury Park Press reporter, October 22, 2001.  
[65]  	See supra note 43.
[66]  	Wisc. Gen. Stat.  19.31.
[67]  	Mark Stodder, legislative chairman for the newspaper association, almost seemed wistful when he described it: "It seemed that Wisconsin truly had - I don't know if liberal is the right word, but - [ a law] in which the priority of openness in government remained clear and esteemed_.  It was a law that really captured the spirit of a very long tradition of openness in Wisconsin."  (Phone interview, January 24, 2002)
[68]  	See supra note 44.
[69]  	One year after passing its Freedom of Information Act, Connecticut passed a personal data act to help citizens claim rights over information the government was gathering on them.  "From that point on, the struggle really commenced," said Mitch Pearlmann, who has headed the Connecticut FOI Commission since its creation under the 1975 law.  "We tend to be ahead of the curve," he said.  "Up and down."  (Phone interview with Mitch Pearlmann, executive director of the FOIC, November 9, 2001).  
[70]  	Phone interview with Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, November 15, 2001.
[71]  	Mike Mosedale, Data Man, City Pages (online magazine), January 9, 2002.
[72]  	In addition to getting informal advice, requesters and officials have, since 1993, been able to ask the commissioner to issue advisory opinions. The opinion isn't binding, but it "must be given deference by a court" if the requester tries to sue for access. (  13.072.)  Gemberling said there have been mixed results with the advisory process.  "I've seen judges say, 'Yeah, the commissioner wrote an opinion here; I'll look at it.  Hmm, this is really helpful.'  And I've seen judges say, 'I know I have to look at this stupid opinion, but I'm the judge.  So I looked at it.  So what.'"  (Phone interview, December 7, 2001)  Attorney Mark Anfinson, concurred: "He's got no power, and that has been an age-old problem," Anfinson said. "Don can tell public officials what he thinks the law means, but he can't do much to enforce it, and so when you realize that many of the contentious issues _ will eventually reach the desk of an attorney for a particular public agency, they're not deferential to Don for the most part."  (Phone interview, December 5, 2001)
[73]  	Phone interview with Mark Anfinson, counsel for the Minnesota Press Association, December 5, 2001.
[74]  	"It's just that nobody understands it," said Lucy Dalglish, RCFP's executive director and former Minnesota journalist and attorney.  "It's a very, very complicated statute."  (Phone interview, November 15, 2001)   Doug Glass, a Minneapolis AP news editor who ran the audit, noted that "I think it's safe to say that the law can be difficult to understand." He then admitted that he was "going through a very thick folder to get the law in front of me - a simple version of the law, so bear with me."  (Phone interview, November 9, 2001)
[75]  	College students were, in fact, participants in only moralistic states: Rhode Island, Connecticut and Minnesota.  The Rhode Island audit was actually spearheaded by Ross Cheit, a political science professor at Brown University.
[76]  	Staci Sawyer, attorney for the Providence Journal, for example, argued that the absence of a balancing test was the law's biggest weakness.  "A lot of times the arguments against this run [along the lines of] 'how can you have a public servant decide what's public and what's not public?' - but I don't think public servants are as ignorant as people sometimes think they are."  (Phone interview, November 14, 2001)
[77]  	Steve Brown, ACLU Rhode Island executive director, for example, argued that "the biggest problem is an attitude or culture in some public bodies," (phone interview, November 7, 2001) and Ross Cheit, Brown University professor, described a landscape "littered with conflicts of interest," including the attorney general's office and legislatively created commissions that do the bulk of government work and are not subject to the Public Records Act.  (Phone interview, November 12, 2001.)  
[78]  	E-mail interview with Bill Theobald, reporter for the Indianapolis Star, November 5, 2001.
[79]  	Supra note 58.
[80]  	When journalist Don Asher moved from Illinois to Indiana, he said he was appalled at its murkiness.  "Indiana's FOI laws were so ambiguous, you couldn't figure out what was supposed to be accessible and what wasn't," he said. "That was really the key frustration."  (Phone interview, October 16, 2001.)  One example of this has been in the Act's working-papers exemption.  (Ind. Code  5-14-3-4(b)(6))  An early analysis of the law argued that the exemption could be read so broadly that it threatened to "swallow the rule" - a fear that was apparently realized, according to journalist Kyle Neiderpruem and Public Access Counselor Ann O'Connor.  (See Note: Indiana Opens Public Records But (b)(6) May be the Exception that Swallows the Rule, 17 Ind. L. Rev. 555 (1984); Neiderpruem interview, supra note 62); O'Connor interview, October 24, 2001).  In addition to some unclear exemptions, the law's organization itself needs some revamping, Public Access Counselor Ann O'Connor admits.  "For example," she said, "until [they] get to the second-to-last section of the law, public agencies don't even know how long they have to respond.  Some clarifications would be nice _ because these are laws that non-lawyers are using on a daily basis."
[81]  	In 2001 the Indiana legislature passed House Bill 1083 (which was ultimately vetoed by the governor) in order to exempt its members from the Public Records Act.  This wasn't the first close call.  In 1993, amid a great media outcry, the Indiana Supreme Court in Masariu v. Marion Superior Court refused to force the House to release legislators' votes on various bills, saying in its curt opinion that this would violate the separation-of-powers clause in Indiana's constitution. (See State ex. rel. Masariu v. Marion Superior Court No. 1, 621 N.E.2d 1097 (Ind. 1993)).  At the time, many observers interpreted the Masariu case as a judicial exemption of the legislature, although a close reading of the opinion, and subsequent state history, have shown this concern to have been somewhat overblown.  Nevertheless, even the law that created the public access counselor in 1999 didn't make it through both houses without at least one attempt to insert a legislative exemption.
[82]  	The Jeckyll & Hyde approach is apparent in the law's guarantees of access.  For example, its statement of legislative intent starts off with the soaring Meiklejohnian idealism above, then proceeds to caution potential requesters that it "is not intended to be used to violate individual privacy, nor for the purpose of furthering commercial enterprise, or to disrupt the duly-undertaken work of any public body_." (See 5 ILCS 140/1).  The definition of public records follows the same format.  First the law defines public records broadly as "all records, reports, forms, writings, _ regardless of physical form or characteristics, having been prepared, or having been or being used, received, possessed or under the control of any public body." (See  2(c)).  Such a definition lends itself to an equally strong presumption of openness.  But the law doesn't stop there.  It moves on, adding more to the definition by listing the types of documents included in 'public records.'  These include and - the law hastens to add - are not limited to, such documents as administrative manuals, final opinions and orders, substantive rules, final planning policies, and the names, salaries, titles, and dates of employment for all state employees.  (See  2(c)(i) - (xvi)).  By actually listing 16 specific types of record meant to be included in the law, however, the definition can be read in a much more limiting way.
[83]  	Ultimately, the Illinois experts say the presumption of openness does not quite pan out in reality.  "Our law is supposed to be like other FOI laws, with the presumption that things are open," said Beth Bennett, government affairs manager for the Illinois Press Association.  "But there's a propensity in Illinois _ to spell out every little thing that should be exempt.  So you have to make a case as to why you're asking for what you want, instead of presuming things are open."   As a result, Bennett said the state press has been fairly aggressive about using the courts to clarify the law.  "We can't get [clarification] through the legislature, so we end up challenging certain bad decisions, and at least we have a court that clarifies that.  That's our M.O.," she said. "Looking to the courts to clarify."  (Phone interview, October 24, 2001).
[84]  	See N.J. Stat. Ann. 47:1A-2 and 65 Pa. Cons. Stat.  66.1(2).
[85]  	See supra note 44 and 45.	
[86]  	A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial summed up the view of Pennsylvania's antiquated law:  "Refuse, refuse, refuse.  Deny, deny, deny.  Maybe that line belongs on the Pennsylvania license plate." (Not-so-open records; You've got a dinosaur in Pennsylvania (editorial), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 11, 2000.)  And, as New Jersey's SPJ president put it, "New Jersey has always had a tradition of closed government.  Everything's been done in a closed manner."  (Phone interview, November 8, 2001.  Miskoff is the owner of Media Trends, a newspaper production company, as well as the vice president of New Jersey For Open Government).
[87]  	The New Jersey Press Association has been trying to get a new open-records law for 12 years now.  Executive Director John O'Brien has practically made a sub-career out of the effort.  The journey that brought the final passage of the bill on the last day of the legislature's session - January 3, 2002 - is in itself a book.  (O'Brien phone interview, November 12, 2001 _ and phone interview with another N.J. expert (anonymous) on February 5, 2002).  See also John Cochowski, Assembly OKs wider public view of records but exempts files of state legislators, The Bergen Record, January 4, 2002.
[88]  	The Illinois Uniform Arrest Report law, drafted by Beth Bennett (supra note 83) and passed in 2000, gives news media a clear-cut right to arrest report information. (5 ILCS 160/4a; 20 ILCS 2605/55a; 50 ILCS 205/2b; 110 ILCS 12/15.  "When a person is arrested, the following information must be available to the news media for inspection and copying_.  The information required by this paragraph must be made available to the news media for inspection and copying as soon as practicable, but in no event shall the time period exceed 72 hours from the arrest.")  There is also a clarification within the FOIA that separates news media from other commercial interests. ( 6(b))
[89]  	Supra note 35.	
[90]  	 2.1-340.1.
[91]  	"There's a disconnect between [the law's] lofty intent and the way it's interpreted," argued Will Corbin, editor of the Daily Press, pointing at government attorneys who, he says, "follow the letter of the law, not the spirit."  (Phone interview, May 4, 2001)
[92]  	Chip Wilson, North Carolina's SPJ sunshine chair and journalist at Raleigh's Charlotte Observer, says the law has improved substantially in the 1990s, due in large part to a progressive state legislature. (Phone interview, June 8, 2001)  NCPA Executive Director Terri Sailor concurred, citing the 1995 amendments as particularly useful. (Phone interview, June 7, 2001) 	
[93]  	Phone interview with Peter Canfield, attorney with Dow Lohnes & Albertson, June 13, 2001.
[94]  	An Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor complained that the law now "looks like something out of the U.S. tax code."  (Phone interview with Tom Bennett, June 8, 2001.  Bennett is also the Georgia SPJ Sunshine Chair.)
[95]  	"The most positive thing about the Act," said attorney Peter Canfield, "is that the courts have always interpreted it so as to improve the broad spirit of it _ there's a presumption of openness."  Supra note 93.
[96]  	Arkansas' FOI experts unanimously characterize their state's open-records law as one of the strongest in the country.  One expert put it plainly: "I think we have a real good law in Arkansas." (Phone interview with Robert Fisher, FOI ombudsman, Attorney General's office, on May 1, 2001)
[97]  	The 2001 Electronic Records Act clarifies the parameters of agency responsibility when requesters want data in electronic formats. (Act 1653) "To our knowledge, it's the most comprehensive electronics records law out there," said Dennis Schick, executive director of the state's press association. "Of course, it's still a work in progress."  Schick, who also heads up the state's loosely organized FOI coalition, said his reserved assessment simply reflects the fact that the new law has yet to be tested, and thus may or may not improve access to records. (Phone interview, May 17, 2001.)  Another concern is the law's complexity, according to Brenda Blagg, an editor at The Morning News, who said she feared that the state has "created a lawyer's employment bill," with dense "legalese" that will be difficult for citizens, journalists and officials to translate. (Phone interview, May 15, 2001.)  Her view was echoed by an editorial from the Jonesboro Sun that complained, "What started out as a bill for the people became a bill for the lawyers with too many exemptions."  March 26, 2001.  See also, Chris Osher. Parties settle on FOI revisions to address electronic records. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 23, 2001:  "[Dennis] Bailey told the committee the current FOI law is 'exquisitely simple." The proposed change would 'turn it into an incredibly complex, difficult to understand and difficult to apply law,' Bailey said.  He predicted that if enacted, the original bill would spawn decades of litigation to clarify its intent."