When the legislature enacted CPRA, it expressly declared that "access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.
"[2] Indeed, in California "access to government records has been deemed a fundamental interest of citizenship"[3] and has emphasized that "maximum disclosure of the conduct of governmental operations [is] to be promoted by the act.
"[5] As the California Supreme Court recognized in CBS v. Block: Implicit in a democratic process is the notion that government should be accountable for its actions.
]"[7] Citing with approval an even broader definition of public records adopted by the California Attorney General, another court has stated: This definition is intended to cover every conceivable kind of record that is involved in the governmental process and will pertain to any new form of record-keeping instrument as it is developed.
[11] In reviewing the propriety of an agency decision to withhold records, a court is charged with ascertaining whether nondisclosure was justified under either of these statutes.
[18]In 2013, as part of budget negotiations, the Legislature approved a plan to make certain provisions in the Act optional for local agencies.
The move was done in order to save "tens of millions of dollars" in state reimbursements to local agencies that comply with the Act, according to Legislative Analyst's Office projections.
Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California Newspaper Publisher's Association, called the move "the worst assault on the public's right to know I have seen in my 18 years of doing this.
The Assembly passed a measure to revoke that provision in the budget bill, which Jerry Brown signed into law.