It’s the time of year when many states have either ended their legislative sessions or are preparing to adjourn sine die in the next month or so. We’ve also passed the point in most states when new bills can be introduced or existing legislation that hasn’t passed out of the body in which it was introduced can be considered in the opposite chamber.
Nevertheless, several noteworthy public notice-related bills we’ve been following did see some movement last month.
Most importantly, bills in Arizona and Iowa authorizing local governments to publish notices on government websites instead of newspapers were significantly amended before they passed their original chambers.
Arizona SB-2006 was approved in the Senate on a party-line 16-13 vote after an amendment limited its application to Maricopa County. (Some elements of the state GOP are at war with Arizona’s largest county. For example, Republican State Senator Wendy Rogers, who voted in favor of SB-2006, was recently granted a restraining order against a Maricopa-based Arizona Capitol Times journalist for investigating her residency.)
The bill has now passed through two committees in the House but after Republican member Liz Harris was expelled and the GOP majority in the lower chamber was reduced to a single vote, some observers question whether it will ever reach the House floor. And even if it does pass the House, there’s a good chance Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, will veto it.
The bill in Iowa began as a complicated scheme that would have eliminated newspaper notice, but it was approved last month on a 37-12 Senate vote only after it was amended to maintain that statutory requirement. The amended version of SF-546 requires notices to be published on newspaper websites or, for papers without a website, on the Iowa Newspaper Association’s statewide site. Newspapers must post the website notice within 48 hours of receiving it from a government entity and that online publication commences the statutory-requirement period regardless of when the notice is published in print.
The amended SF-546 now only allows the posting of a notice on a government website to satisfy statutory notice requirements when “no official newspaper exists” in a particular jurisdiction. It was referred last week to a House committee. Iowa’s General Assembly is still in session this week even though it was originally scheduled to adjourn on April 28.
Two important bills liberalizing the standards under which newspapers qualify to publish notices also advanced last month in Missouri and Oregon, both with the support of their state’s press association. Missouri HB-752 reduces the “consecutively published” standard for official newspapers from three years to one. It also increases the period during which a successor newspaper must begin publishing to qualify as an official newspaper, from 30 days to 90 days after the previous paper closes. Similar bills supported by the Missouri Press Association failed to make headway in prior sessions. This year’s version of the bill passed the House 132-5 on April 17 but a hearing scheduled last week in the Senate was cancelled.
Oregon HB-3167 expands the type of newspaper formats qualified to meet statutory notice requirements to include e-editions. If it passes, Oregon will become the second state to approve such an expansion; North Dakota passed a similar measure earlier this year. HB-3167 also allows free-circulation papers to publish notice for a period “not to exceed twelve months” in jurisdictions where the only paid-circulation paper has ceased publication. It also adds new content standards to the public notice law, requiring “consistent, regular coverage of local news” and at least 25 percent of “total news content” to be “locally and originally” produced. It passed the House early last month on a 58-1 vote and is scheduled to be heard in a Senate committee later this week.
Missouri and Oregon both also saw self-storage bills advance last month. Missouri HB-1120 allows self-storage operators to advertise lien sales “in any other commercially reasonable manner” as an alternative to newspaper notice. Oregon SB-862 authorizes the owners to advertise lien sales on websites that provide a platform for auctions or sales of personal property. It also reduces from two to one the number of weekly publications required if the owner still chooses to advertise in a newspaper. The Missouri bill passed the House early last month by a 135-20 margin; the Oregon version passed the Senate a week later, 20-9.
Self-storage bills also crossed chambers in California and Texas. The Texas bill combines all of the elements of the Missouri and Oregon measures; it passed the House last month by a vote of 99-46. California’s self-storage bill was amended to maintain the statutory requirement of newspaper notice, although it allows self-storage operators to reduce the number of weekly newspaper ads they’re required to publish, from two to one, as long as they also advertise the lien sale on a website that conducts auctions or sales. It passed the Senate unanimously yesterday.
The Texas Press Association-backed SB-943 also advanced last week after unanimously passing the Senate. It requires newspapers to post their notices free of charge on their website, if they have one, and on TPA’s statewide public notice site.
In Florida, an elections bill that potentially eliminates a slew of newspaper notices is on its way to the Governor’s desk after passing both houses last week. Florida S-7050 allows local governments to post all or most election notices on their county website or the website of the supervisor of elections, in lieu of newspaper publication.