Editorial: Fees to access records would be bad precedent

State Sen. Loni Hancock, a Berkeley Democrat, drew the argument over a proposal to charge a $10 fee to search for court records in truly stark terms: Woodward and Bernstein, she said, would never have broken open the Watergate scandal if they’d faced such a high burden.

Hancock deserves a hand for her wholehearted support of a free press and open records, but that’s missing the point just a bit.

The reporters whose work ultimately brought down the Nixon administration worked for The Washington Post, then and now a major newspaper. It has the resources to cover a modest routine court fee. So do other media outlets including this one — though nobody relishes an extra expense.

Where the new fee will pinch more is among the average citizens with an interest in public records — to keep an eye on lawsuits involving City Hall or the school board or a development or crime in their own neighborhood. Every new fee is a new barrier that makes it harder for them to do their civic duty.

It is also an ugly precedent. Generally speaking, public-records laws in California allow agencies to charge per-page fees for printing or copying documents, or for the time involved in complex document searches. They do not, however, charge for routine requests. If the courts start billing just to ask to ask for a file, what’s next? A fee to read the City Council agenda? To take a peek at the plans for the new building around the corner that the Planning Commission might approve at its next meeting? To call the county with a question? (Such “service” is good enough for some businesses.) Where would it stop?

The courts have absorbed serious budget cuts, to be sure. Steven Jahr, administrative chief of the courts and a former Shasta County judge, said court administrators don’t think the fee is a good idea, so much as they’re just desperate. It’s “a simple impulse for self-preservation,” he told The Associated Press.

The financial squeeze is no joke, but if the state starts eroding access to public records in the name of budget cutting, the result will be a less-informed public and even less trust of our own government. There must be a better way.