Bill > A851

Introduced Session

Under current law, an open public record request for commercial purposes is treated the same as a request for personal purposes. Commercial requests, however, often take more time and utilize more resources than traditional requests. This bill permits a special service charge for record requests for commercial purposes. The special service charge must be reasonable and based upon the actual, direct cost of providing the records. The bill also extends the time for a records custodian to respond to a public records request for commercial purposes from seven business days to fourteen business days. Under the bill, the records custodian can require a requestor to state whether the requestor intends to use the records for a commercial purpose, but cannot require the requestor to provide the exact use for the commercial purpose. A requestor who intends to use the record for a commercial purpose must certify to that fact on the request form. A requestor who is found to have intentionally failed to certify that a records request is for a commercial purpose will be subject to a civil penalty of $500. Commercial purposes mean the direct or indirect use of any part of a government record for sale, resale, solicitation, rent, or lease of a service, or any use by which the user expects a profit either through commission, salary, or fee. It does not include the use of information or data by the news media, or by any scholarly or governmental organization.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Gerry Scharfenberger (R)*, 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly State and Local Government Committee (on 01/13/2026)

Official Document