PNNM News:

ALBUQUERQUE — ProgressNow New Mexico today delivered a letter to the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) Task Force, urging leaders to preserve and modernize New Mexico’s public records law rather than narrow it in response to a surge in requests driven largely by out-of-state commercial data brokers.

“New Mexicans have shown up at task force meetings from Clovis to Silver City to Farmington,” said Joe Cardillo, Deputy Director of ProgressNow NM. “They deserve an IPRA that comes out of this process stronger, fairer, and better resourced, not smaller. State leaders must preserve the core rights and spirit of this vital law.”

In the letter, ProgressNow New Mexico urges the task force to focus on resourcing compliance, modernizing technology, and enforcing existing timelines, while rejecting new fees, carve-outs, or other restrictions that would limit access for journalists, community groups, and ordinary New Mexicans.

Among the key recommendations:

• Fund the people who answer requests. Establish dedicated, recurring appropriations for records custodians, especially in small municipalities and counties.
• Enforce the timelines already on the books. Strengthen the existing $50-per-day penalty and attorneys’ fee shifting, and require the Attorney General to publish an annual IPRA compliance report.
• Target bad actors, not the public. Address the commercial data broker problem at its source, while protecting every right of individual requesters and the press.
• Maintain access for historically excluded communities. Ensure Tribal communities, immigrant communities, people with disabilities, non-English speakers, and rural residents can still meaningfully use the law.

View full letter to the IPRA Task Force.

About ProgressNow New Mexico

ProgressNow NM is the premier communications hub for the progressive movement in New Mexico. We fill a unique and critical role in the progressive infrastructure by working year-round with coalitions to promote progressive ideas and causes with creative, earned media strategies, digital organizing, and cutting-edge new media. We work to create an ongoing issue advocacy culture in New Mexico by focusing on amplifying the voices of those systemically excluded, ultimately giving communities the tools they need to shape their own future.

Learn more: https://progressnownm.org