California lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow the government to dodge transparency when people request public records.
Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, a Democrat, introduced the measure in February to address a supposed uptick in records requests filed by artificial intelligence. The bill would give state and local agencies the power to charge fees for public records searches, extend response times, and ask courts to label some requesting records as acting with malicious intent.
The legislation would amend the California Public Records Act, which requires agencies to make most government records available to the public.
Call Senator Umberg at (916) 651-4034 or (714) 558-3785 and ask him to save the California Public Records Act and KILL AB 1821 in his committee! And then read this story, pretty amusing - that Assemblywoman Blanca Pacheco is quite a piece of work!https://t.co/cqRZNNcK9C
— Vern Nelson (@OrangeJuiceBlog) June 22, 2026
Pacheco first proposed the bill earlier this year but narrowed parts of it after getting some blowback. The Assembly passed an earlier version in May.
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If the bill passes in its current iteration, it would instruct agencies to designate specific ways people can submit records requests. Agencies would also be allowed to charge $22 per hour in administrative fees and $66 per hour in professional fees for the time staff spends searching through databases, reviewing, and redacting records.
Agencies would also be empowered to petition a superior court to determine whether a requester acted with malicious intent, which could pause the request and impose more costs on the individual requesting records.
"[AB 1821) would be a giant step backward on the government transparency and accountability front, putting California among the states that are the worst on access to government records,” @FACoalition David Snyder tells The Oaklandside.https://t.co/EvjGWR5eLB
— Natalie Hanson (@nhanson_reports) June 20, 2026
We can already see the problem here, can’t we? These changes would create financial and procedural barriers to those seeking information about government agencies. David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition told CalMatters, “The only way that there’s any government accountability is that people know what the government is doing,” and that “This looks a lot like an effort to evade accountability.”
I’d say Snyder nailed it.
If there are people using AI bots to frivolously request public records, then Pacheco is certainly seizing on the opportunity to use it as an excuse to allow government agencies to avoid scrutiny and accountability.
Still, Pacheco is still selling it hard. “Transparency is important to me. We just want it to run efficiently, and these are just minor amendments or minor tweaks to the Public Records Act,” she lied.
The bottom line is that there are likely better ways to deal with the problems Pacheco cites without making it cost prohibitive for people to access public records. This is a common tactic the government uses to make it appear as if they value transparency while using sneaky methods to keep their activities concealed.
When corrupt government officials can easily conceal their wrongdoing by putting up legislative barriers to keep people from looking too closely, they know they won’t have to worry about consequences for their actions. That’s precisely why bills like this exist. Californians better take notice.
