California Public Records Act Expert Terry Franke Shares Insights

The Sacramento Bee has run a very informative interview with Terry Franke -- co-founder and general counsel of Californians Aware.  Among his insights: California's court created deliberative process exemption has resulted in more documents being marked "draft" in order to create a presumption that supports withholding.  So, rather than simply arguing that releasing a record would interfere with an elected or other government official's ability to reach a decision without undue negative influence (i.e., the "deliberative process"), Franke notes that governments now go out of their way to label documents as drafts so as to protect them from release. Read the full interview here.