Dear MNA Publishers,
Last week, both the House and Senate passed S. F. 1770—known as the “Timberjay bill.” The core of the bill was drafted and has been promoted by MNA as one of our top priorities for the 2014 legislative session. It would restore an important provision of the Data Practices Act to how it was interpreted for almost 15 years, until a decision issued by the Supreme Court last fall in the Timberjay case abruptly reversed what had settled law. At issue is the extent to which public access is permitted to certain data maintained by contractors doing business with government agencies that shows how the contracts are being performed. The Court decision seriously diminished the ability of citizens and journalists to adequately monitor how state money is being spent by private contractors.
Governor Dayton now has the legislation, and we encourage you to publish the commentary below this week and let the Governor know how important this bill being signed into law is to Minnesota newspapers.
Please contact me with any questions or concerns,
Lisa Hills, MNA Executive Director
lisa@mna.org or 612-332-0222
Timberjay Commentary
An important piece of legislation was unanimously approved last week by both the House and Senate, and it’s now headed for Gov. Dayton’s desk. S. F. 1770–-commonly known as the “Timberjay bill”– may not have captured many headlines, but its significance goes to the heart of government accountability. The bill would overturn an unfortunate ruling last fall from the Minnesota Supreme Court, and reaffirm that citizens have a right to information about private businesses that contract with government entities.
The legislation is rooted in efforts by the Timberjay, a newspaper that serves Ely and Tower, to get information about a major school construction project. Publisher Marshall Helmberger, concerned about costs and other troubling aspects of a project, asked the school district for certain details about the construction contracts.
The district didn’t have these records, and so Helmberger went to the contractor, citing a provision in state law that requires public access to certain information held by a government contractor that shows how the contract is being performed. But the contractor in this case, Fortune 500 company Johnson Controls, refused Helmberger’s request. The Timberjay then sued and won its case before the Minnesota Appeals Court, only to have the ruling overturned by the state Supreme Court.
The Timberjay bill seeks to clarify the state’s Data Practices Act so there’s no question that the public has access to details showing how private companies are performing contracts with government agencies in cases where the agency fails to obtain all of the pertinent information from the contractor. There’s a potential problem however. Before giving final approval to the bill, the House last week added an amendment dealing with a separate data practices issue involving the state Department of Public Safety. Apparently the Department doesn’t like the amendment, and may be trying to persuade the Governnor to veto the whole bill. Such a move would be extremely unfortunate, because the public benefits of the Timberjay bill itself far outweigh whatever minor issues the Public Safety amendment may entail.
In every community in the state you can find many examples of private companies doing business with government agencies. The Timberjay wrangle, at its core, epitomizes the everyday efforts of reporters and taxpayers to ensure that public business – in this case, the spending of billions of public dollars – is open to the scrutiny of citizens. The Timberjay bill should be signed by Gov. Dayton so that this important goal can be secured.