DID YOU KNOW?
200,000
Wisconsin Voters
Were Kept Away
From the Polls,
and Trump Won
the State by
22,000 Votes
CITY HALL IS HIDING POLICE TACTICS BEHIND
HUGE PUBLIC RECORDS FEES.
ksh e p h e rd @ wwe e k.com
Despite a legislative session marked by reforms
pages of public records related to a database of
to Oregon’s public records law, a troubling
alleged gang members.
trend is emerging among Portland’s city agen-
The bureau initially denied her request for a
cies. They are in eff ect censoring local media by
fee waiver, but Brosseau appealed to the Mult-
refusing to comply with the spirit of the public
nomah County district attorney, who considers
records law.
appeals when a city or county agency denies a
Legislators passed the law in 1973. Their
records request or fee waiver. The DA cannot,
goal was transparency. “The public is entitled to
however, make a ruling on whether a cost esti-
know how the public’s business is conducted,”
mate is reasonable or not.
says the Oregon Attorney General’s Public
The DA noted that “where fees in excess
Records and Meetings Manual.
of a thousand dollars have been found rea-
But when handling requests for public
sonable, they usually involve requests for
documents—already paid for by taxpayers—
thousands or tens of thousands of pages
several city agencies engage in price gouging
of records.” He ordered the Police Bureau
as a deliberate delay tactic.
to reconsider, but did not say whether the
On Aug. 30, for example, WW requested
bureau had to waive or reduce the fee.
emails that would shed light on the city of Port-
Those 39 pages would reveal details of how
land’s response to street protests. The protests
police officers justified designating suspects
preoccupied the city this summer: They regu-
in the agency’s controversial gang database.
larly degenerated into politically charged brawls
As Brosseau recently detailed on Twitter, the
and damaged property. Portland police were
bureau eventually gave Brosseau the records
criticized for their tactics, which included fi ring
nearly one year after her initial request—one
pepper balls and rubber bullets into crowds and
day before the city announced it was disposing
pepper-spraying protesters.
of the gang list.
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s offi ce asked for $3,189
When Oregon’s public records law first
for a set of emails between six staff ers discuss-
went into eff ect, it established a presumption of
ing the protests.
openness—the burden lay with the government
The public records law
agency to demonstrate that
permits agencies to charge
a record was exempt from
requesters the cost of pro-
disclosure.
ducing records but also
“When I first started as a
“GOVERNMENT
allows for fee waivers if
reporter, it worked as it was
CAN CHARGE
“making the record available
intended to work,” says Brent
FOR EVERY L AST
primarily benefi ts the general
Walth, assistant professor
PAPER CLIP,
public.”
at the University of Oregon
JUST TO MAKE
Wheeler’s offi ce acknowl-
and former WW news editor.
edged a clear public interest
“It was a law of disclosure.
IT DIFFICULT FOR
in producing the documents.
It took clear evidence that a
THE PUBLIC
“ T h e c i t y a g re e s i t s
record was exempt from dis-
TO
SEE
WHAT
constituents deserve the
closure [to justify a denial].”
THE PUBLIC
fullest picture relating to the
But over the years, leg-
protests,” Wheeler’s office
islators passed hundreds of
ALREADY OWNS.”
responded to a petition for
exemptions, making it more
a fee waiver. “Public offi cials’
difficult to access records
policy decisions are of public
created during the course of
interest due to the use of city resources and
government business and funded by taxpayers.
safety, transparency, and First Amendment
In 2015, the Center for Public Integrity gave
concerns.”
Oregon an F grade for ease of access to public
But the mayor’s offi ce did not agree to the
information—due in part to a lack of timeliness
fee waiver. Instead, it off ered WW a 25 percent
and high costs.
discount.
After the 2017 reforms—which set deadlines
In other words, it determined that the pub-
for response times, established a Sunshine
lic had an interest in seeing the records in the
Commission to review exemptions, and created
newspaper only if the paper fi rst paid $2,287.
a public records advocate position—it is more
That’s a steep price for a small newspaper, and
difficult to sneak a new exemption through
WW hasn’t paid it.
the Legislature. But the reforms didn’t tackle
Some transparency advocates believe high
the recurring problem of blocking requests by
fees are intended to keep the public in the dark.
charging exorbitant fees.
“It’s apparent to me and to others that
“It was a lot of work to accomplish what we
doing that is intended to discourage people
did during the attorney general’s task force,”
from going after public records,” says Judson
says state Rep. John Huffman (R-The Dalles),
Randall, co-founder of public-records nonprofi t
who worked on the Attorney General’s Public
Open Oregon. “It’s simply a technique to keep
Records Law Reform Task Force. “Costs and
the records from being released. It’s a crummy
response times defi nitely came up in the con-
technique, to say the least.”
versations, but it was challenging to come to a
The mayor’s offi ce defends its practices.
reasonable conclusion.”
“We believe transparency is an essential
Members of the public lack an avenue to
element of good governance, and make every
appeal unreasonable fees. The law allows for
effort to achieve that value under our public
government agencies to charge the “actual
records laws,” says Michael Cox, spokesman
cost” of producing the records. However, it does
for Wheeler’s offi ce. “Collecting and reviewing
not off er further guidance on how to calculate
records can be a time-consuming, and therefore
that cost or place limits on what government
costly, process.”
can charge.
It’s not just the mayor’s offi ce. In late 2016,
“Government can charge for every last paper
the Portland Police Bureau asked Oregonian
clip,” Walth says, “just to make it diffi cult for the
reporter Carli Brosseau to pay $1,170 for just 39
public to see what the public already owns.”
16
Willamette Week OCTOBER 11, 2017 wweek.com
RIOT COP PHOTOGRAPHED BY WILLIAM GAGAN
BY KATI E S HE PHE RD
The 2016 election was
the fi rst election in 50
years without the full
protection of the Voting Rights
Act, first passed in 1965. In
Shelby County v. Holder (2013), a
5-4 conservative majority in the
U.S. Supreme Court struck down
a key provision requiring juris-
dictions with a history of viola-
tions to “pre-clear” changes. As a
result, changes to voting laws in
nine states and parts of six others with long histories of racial dis-
crimination in voting were no longer subject to federal approval
in advance.
Since Shelby, 14 states, including many Southern states and
key swing states, implemented new voting restrictions, in many
cases just in time for the election. These included restrictive vot-
er-identifi cation laws in Texas and North Carolina, English-only
elections in many Florida counties, as well as last-minute changes
of poll locations, and changes in Arizona voting laws that had pre-
viously been rejected by the U.S. Department of Justice before the
Shelby decision.
Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle
for Voting Rights in America, was foremost among a small number
of non-mainstream journalists to cover the suppression efforts
and their results. In May 2017, he reported on an analysis by Pri-
orities U.S.A. of the effects of voter suppression, which showed
that strict voter-ID laws in Wisconsin and other states resulted in
a “signifi cant reduction” in voter turnout in 2016 with “a dispro-
portionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning
voters.” Berman noted that turnout was reduced by 200,000 votes
in Wisconsin, while Donald Trump won the state by just over
22,000 votes.
Nationwide, the study found that the change in voter
turnout from 2012 to 2016 was significantly impacted by
new voter-ID laws. In counties that were more than 40 per-
cent African-American, turnout dropped 5 percent with new
voter-ID laws, compared to 2.2 percent without. In counties
that were less than 10 percent African-American, turnout
decreased 0.7 percent with new voter-ID laws, compared to
a 1.9 percent increase without. As Berman concluded, “This
study provides more evidence for the claim that voter-ID
laws are designed not to stop voter impersonation fraud,
which is virtually nonexistent, but to make it harder for cer-
tain communities to vote.”
As Berman noted in an article published by Moyers & Company
in December 2016, the topic of “gutting” the Voting Rights Act did
not arise once during the 26 presidential debates prior to the elec-
tion, and “cable news devoted hours and hours to Trump’s absurd
claim that the election was rigged against him while spending
precious little time on the real threat that voters faced.”
CONT. on page 18