Flickr/Balld

If open records are a data reporter’s bread and butter, then public records laws are the knife we nerds use to get a slice.

Every state has its own version of a public records law, determining which records local governing bodies have to hand over, how fast and what they can charge for it. It also lists exemptions to the law, including types of records a governing body can refuse to disclose.

Wondering whether your state or local government is actually transparent? Easy — just search the Open Government Guide published by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. 

The No. 1 thing to understand about public records laws: they are not created equal.

Most of my experience with state open-records law has been in Massachusetts, especially through my work with the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. I also sent various records requests to about 25 states during my time at ProPublica. To help familiarize myself with the California Public Records Act, I reached out to two experts.

Lucy Dalglish has headed the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press for more than 10 years. She spent almost five years as a media lawyer before that, and served as a reporter and editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1980 to 1993.

I also talked to Josh Meyer, who runs WikiFOIA, a website that grades states' open-records laws and keeps tabs on lawsuits and news related to transparency. Unlike most open-records nerds, Meyer doesn’t have a background in journalism or law; he has earned his political science degree in 2008 from the University of Notre Dame.

Generally speaking, Dalglish and Meyer said public records laws should:

• Presume that all records held by all branches (executive, judicial and legislative) are public

• Define deadlines — and repercussions if those deadlines aren’t met

• Limit allowable charges and fees for information, preferably to not more than the cost of copying the record onto a disc or piece of paper. “It shouldn’t be a revenue thing; it should be a service thing,” Meyer said of fees.

Meyer says his background helps him see the “big picture” and weigh whether the average person would be able to use a state sunshine law to gather information.

“I think one of the downfalls of [the California law] is that they have a very complicated law, and this is part of being such a large state,” he said, adding that the CPRA isn't user-friendly to people outside law or journalism. “From a political science background, I look at open-records laws and open-meeting laws as less of an awareness issue but more of a participation issue. The average citizen shouldn’t need the newspaper."

In my experience, however, the letter of a public records law doesn’t amount to much if your local records custodian refuses to honor its spirit. Meyer agreed. "If you want to find loopholes, whether you have a very vague law or a very specific law, you’re going to do it,” he said.

Dalglish said that’s why clear exemptions are important. “The less discretionary power in the hands of the person behind the counter, the better.”

When I asked how the CPRA compares to other states' sunshine laws, Dalglish said she would put it “in the middle of the pack,” making it neither the best nor the worst open-records law in the country.

Check out the chart below to compare open-records laws in California, Massachusetts and Florida. I chose Massachusetts because it’s familiar to me, and I picked Florida because Dalglish said it had a good open-records law.