Florida lawmakers file dozens of public record exemptions, including for pet adopters
There are more than 1,000 public records exemptions in Florida, enshrouding what was once openly available information.
And the exemptions to the state's public records law are likely to grow this year. Continuing an annual trend, state lawmakers have filed dozens of them for this legislative session.
For example, there are proposed exemptions for police, for suicide records and for the state contract bidding process. There's even one for pet adopters. But all of them, says one open government advocate, add to a years-long problem.
“Every session, we see a plethora of bills meant to expand the exemptions,” said Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation. "A lot of these individual exemptions, they have a reason for them to come into being. Some of them, there are arguments for and against (but) the problem is the cumulative impact of all these exemptions."
Block said the problem is “like the adage of a death by a thousand cuts.” Florida has historically been touted as having the most expansive public records laws, but he said that’s no longer the case, and said the Legislature's cavalcade of exemptions are a “key reason” for that.
“Public records used to be a relatively straightforward kind of affair,” he said. “It’s now incredibly complicated. Some agencies just are not going to provide them, will fight people on them.”
Barbara Petersen, executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, said the surge in exemptions have increased the costs of getting public records from state agencies.
"Government agencies charge us for the cost of redacting information that they're legally required to protect," she said. "It slows down our ability to get public records because every public record has to be reviewed for exempt information. And if our Legislature is creating exemptions at the rate of 12, 15, 20 a year, think of the burden that places on the records custodian."
As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 30 exemptions have been filed in the House and Senate.
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The arguments for and against one exemption
One of those proposals (SB 660/HB 273) would shield personal identifying information for people who adopt, foster or “otherwise receive legal custody” of a pet from a government-run animal shelter or animal control agency.
“It is an important public policy of the state to encourage the fostering (and) adoption ... of animals and reduce euthanasia rates,” the legislation says. That can’t happen, it adds, “if the prior owners who lost or surrendered legal custody of the animals … can obtain personal identifying information and attempt to regain legal custody of the animals from such persons through stalking, harassment, or intimidation.”
But Block, a former journalist, said there could be good reason for a reporter or a member of the public to figure out who’s adopting pets. His hypothetical: Maybe the person adopting them runs a dogfighting ring or they’re an agent for a company that experiments on animals.
"I'm not saying that's happening, but the point is if it were to happen, if people were abusing animal adoption centers, the best way to remain undiscovered would be to exempt this information from the public," Block said.
And he added that he doubted whether every shelter in the state could properly screen for that: "How are you going to determine good ones from bad ones if you don't have access to records?"
Petersen questioned whether it's a problem "significant enough that we would want to create another exception to the Constitution."
"If you have my dog, and I start threatening you, you have a remedy, you call law enforcement," Petersen said. "If there is going to be an exception to that constitutional right for access, they have to prove the necessity for it."
But Liz McCauley, the executive director of the Cape Coral Animal Shelter, said she hopes the legislation passes and that having pet custody information public is "very dangerous."
Her shelter is a nonprofit and thus is already able to keep it confidential because the public record law doesn't apply to private companies and organizations. In what her team jokingly refers to as the "witness protection program," McCauley said government-run animal shelters or animal control agencies will frequently transfer pets to the shelter so they can rehome them without the original owner being able to find out the eventual new one.
"Probably at least one or twice a month, we're asked to take an animal out of a municipal shelter," she said. "Sometimes we take them from across the state, just to get them out of the area."
Even her team has gotten threatened, McCauley said, after people learned from a government shelter that it had sent their former pet to her nonprofit.
"People who are in many cases abusive to the animals," she said. "It's one thing for someone to show up here and threaten us ... but Fluffy goes to XYZ house down the street and all of sudden there's people stalking those innocent people who just tried to do the right thing and adopt an animal."
And Darcy Andrade, executive director of the Florida Animal Protection and Advocacy Association, doesn't believe the exemption would keep important information from the public, such as the names of people who adopt animals for abusive purposes like dogfighting.
"Nobody who has nefarious intentions is going to come into a municipal shelter, provide their identification, go through background checks," said Andrade, whose association is pushing the exemption. "They're going to get these animals from anonymous sources, (like) Craigslist."
The Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously approved its bill Wednesday, and it now has two more committees to go before it can get on the Senate floor.
"Florida's broad public records law requires the release of this information, which has resulted in numerous cases of harassment and intimidation of pet owners, as well as humane societies, rescue groups and their volunteers," said Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, a sponsor. "Criminal activity has resulted in some of the cases as well. In some of the more extreme cases, people have been attacked and animals have been stolen."
DiCeglie, as well as Rep. Jeff Holcomb, R-Spring Hill, the House sponsor, pushed the same legislation last year but it didn't go the distance.
A few other exemptions of note
One proposed exemption might weaken the accountability and transparency ushered in by a recent Supreme Court ruling that said that Marsy's Law, a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2018 that granted a number of rights to crime victims, doesn't guarantee anonymity for police officers — or any victim of crime.
On Tuesday, Rep. Chuck Brannan of Macclenny filed a bill (HB 1607) exempting “information or records that could be used to locate or harass a crime victim or the victim's family.” He filed a linked bill (HB 1605) listing out “victim’s rights” and defining victims as including “law enforcement officers, correctional officers, or correctional probation officers who use deadly force in the course and scope of their employment or official duties.”
Among other proposed exemptions, there are bills (SB 474/HB 529) that make photographs, videos or audio recordings of a suicide confidential when the information is held by a state agency.
The bill would also exempt autopsy reports of those who died by suicide. Both bills already have passed one committee unanimously, with two to go before they can reach the chambers for a final vote.
And still another proposal (SB 286) would expand exemptions on state agencies’ competitive bidding process for contractors. A similar House version of the bill was withdrawn.
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule is based in Tallahassee, Fla. He can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com. On X: @DouglasSoule
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Pet adopters, police could get public record exemptions in Florida
