Our weekly collection of the biggest stories from FOIA

The 86th Texas Legislative session ended on May 27th, and just last week, Governor Greg Abbot finished signing bills into law. According to the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, 193 of those bills discussed were related to public records - three of which deserve particular attention.

In this week’s FOIA round-up, the Interior Department releases heavily redacted documents to regarding the deployment of law enforcement officials to assist Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border, Michigan authorities issue search warrants for the devices of former governor Rick Snyder as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the Flint water crisis, and the Intercept obtains emails suggesting the Tennessee governor’s office and Volkswagen worked together suppress the United Auto Workers’ attempts to unionize a factory in Chattanooga.

There are nearly 600 exemptions to the Tennessee Public Records Act, and the list keeps growing. However, a new state law could slow the adoption of new exemptions because it requires the Tennessee House’s Government Operations Committee to review any legislation that creates an exception to the TPRA, which requires government records to be open to public inspection.

Over the last nine months, our FOIA Fellow Jessie Gomez has been looking at public records law across the nation through our State of State Public Records Law project. Today, we’ll be exploring the major takeaways from her reporting.

High price tags and records exemptions remain consistent barriers to access.

Legislative efforts to reform state public records law are good, but not enough.

Transparency advocates serve as key players in gaining better access to government records.

Records law issues remain a pertinent part in transparency conversations.

Here are our final thoughts on the last nine months of exploring public records laws.