CHARLESTON — A bill moving in the final two weeks of the 2025 legislative session aims to allow the House of Delegates and state Senate to set their own policies on the kinds of documents made available to the public.

The House Rules Committee — made of House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, committee chairs, and representatives of the nine-member Democratic minority — recommended for passage House Bill 3412, relating to exemptions from disclosure of certain records and exempting the legislative branch if it adopts its own rules. The bill was approved in a voice vote Thursday.

HB 3412 would remove the Legislature from the list of definitions of public bodies included in the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The bill includes a legislative exemption that would go into effect once the House and state Senate adopt their own rules regarding disclosure of public documents or adopt joint rules governing the release of public documents.

West Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act provides every person with the right to inspect or copy any public record of a public body in this state unless otherwise prohibited. Those seeking records can file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the record custodian of any state, county, or city government, which have five business days to respond in writing to such requests.

Record custodians can allow for inspection of the public records and allow for reproduction of the records, charging reasonable fees for reproduction. The Secretary of State’s Office maintains a public database of FOIA requests, requiring public entities to report their requests and their responses, including denials.

Hanshaw, R-Clay, is the lead sponsor of the bill. During testimony before the House Rules Committee Thursday, Hanshaw said the current FOIA law lumps the Legislature in with the executive and judicial branches when the Legislature would be better served by developing its own public documents policy.

“One of the objectives sought to be achieved by this particular piece of legislation is the clarification of what is and is not a legislative record that can actually be reachable by those who typically seek access to legislative records,” Hanshaw said. “Our current statute doesn’t differentiate in any way between the Legislature, the executive branch, and the courts. One way we can do that is if we write a procedure that is specific to the Legislature that does make it clear to the public that here’s what is and what is not a public record.”

Hanshaw cited examples of individuals or media outlets requesting access to draft legislation that has not been introduced either by a lawmaker or a committee, or draft amendments to bills that were not considered by a committee or the Senate and/or House.

“Among the confusion that is often created by our existing statute is what is an actual public record for purposes of applying our Freedom of Information Act statute,” Hanshaw said. “For example, we are often in receipt of requests for things that just simply don’t come within the scope of the statute…Things that just simply aren’t public record, but are nevertheless quite often requested by entities that assert the current Freedom of Information Act statute.”

According to the committee’s counsel, as many as 14 states have similar laws, including Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, and Iowa. But Hanshaw stressed that the bill was not meant to provide a carve-out for the Legislature to FOIA laws.

“I actually never will use the term carve-out because that’s not the intention of the bill,” Hanshaw said. “The intention is not that we exempt the Legislature from access to public records. It’s just simply to point out that we’re not the executive branch and the kinds of records kept in the transaction of legislative business are really not akin to the same kind of records kept by executive branch agencies.

“The current Freedom of Information Act statute is tailored more towards the executive branch and is more easily applicable in that context than it is in the course of our work where there are effectively 134 independent elected officials, as opposed to the executive branch where there is a single elected official whose decision-making process is quite different than our 134,” Hanshaw continued.

Doug Skaff, the president of HD Media and the interim executive director of the West Virginia Press Association (of which this newspaper is a member), urged members to not weaken FOIA and work with the media organizations to ensure access to public documents.

“Freedom of Information has been around since 1966,” Skaff said. “We just want to make sure that these laws provide a legal basis and a framework that government records, meetings, all the doings within the public body of this capital are available to recognized media outlets in this state.”

“Is it the intent of the Legislature to alter — through this bill or any subsequent rules adopted by it — the existing relationship between the press and the Legislature? I’ll categorically answer that question with a no,” Hanshaw said. “We think we have a pretty constructive relationship with our media partners right now. And I actually do use that term ‘partners’ because we do rely upon those members of the credentialed press and credentialed media to distribute those positions of the 134 individual members and of the bodies collectively.”