Opinion: Strengthen New Mexico IPRA before limiting public access

This summer it took a formal request under the state's Inspection of Public Records Act to obtain a blank form that a state agency's workers fill out routinely. IPRA is how New Mexicans see what their government is doing: Anyone can ask, with no reason required. Between elections, it is one of the few ways we check the work. That blank form belonged on the agency's website. The push to amend IPRA began with real pressure. Cities and counties report being swamped, driven partly by data brokers pulling records in bulk to resell and by the explosion of recorded video. Previous attempts to amend the law faltered because they restricted access without addressing what was driving the load. Recently, the state created a task force that gathered public input across New Mexico. Starting with listening is the right instinct. What matters now is what they do with what they heard. No seat was set aside for an ordinary requester, someone who uses the law without an institution behind them. Much of the testimony came from custodians describing the burdens of administering it. Their experience matters. But it is only one side of the equation. The story that takes hold is familiar: too many requests, too broad, too costly. Recall that blank form. The agency sent it to its lawyers, took a month, and called the request broad and burdensome. One empty form. Yet the burden has not been measured with a consistent standard. Without a common definition of burden, any number is easy to game. Some costs are real; others are self-inflicted. Telling those apart is the point. Some costs are unavoidable. Video takes time to review and redact, and brokers pulling records wholesale draw on staff. But much of the rest is self-inflicted: records that are poorly indexed, searches that sprawl across inboxes, no one who knows who holds what. The person asking did not create that cost. The condition of the records did. How an agency handles records requests reveals how well it functions. An office that fights a request for a blank form is showing you how it runs everything else. A custodian exists to serve the public; the public is not an interruption of that work, it is the work. An agency that treats a request as an imposition has the relationship backward. The task force need not fix everything by rewriting IPRA. It should separate what can be fixed now through better administration, training and records management from what needs legislation. Where evidence is thin, it should recommend further study rather than permanent changes based on anecdotes. And the burdens run both ways. If custodians need more staff, training or technology, fund them. But the public needs relief, too. When an agency refuses to comply, the only choices are a complaint to the state Department of Justice, which has no enforcement power, or an expensive, slow lawsuit. The fix is not to make it harder to ask. It is to make agencies able to answer. Measure the burden before restricting access. Define what custodians must know. Publish frequently requested records before anyone asks. Proactive transparency reduces the volume agencies complain about. Some of this needs the Legislature. Much of it the state could already do on its own. On Thursday, the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government announced its annual Dixon Award honorees, recognizing citizens who fight to defend the public's right to know. Weakening IPRA to relieve a burden no one has measured moves our state backward. Give custodians the tools they need. Give the public meaningful enforcement when government fails. Strengthen the system before weakening the right. Douglas Michel is an Albuquerque resident and the 2021 recipient of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government's Dixon First Amendment Freedom Award.