State Legislation
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and some territories have some form of freedom of information legislation that governs documents at the state and local (cities, counties, school districts) level.
The provisions of these state laws vary significantly with respect to issues such as the time period within which an agency must provide the requested documents, how much an agency is allowed to charge for providing documents, whether the state government provides an ombudsman, whether the document requestor must give a reason for wanting the documents, and so on.
Among the most extensive are Florida's Sunshine Laws.
Read more about this topic: Freedom Of Information In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or legislation:
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“There were two unpleasant surprises [about Washington]. One was the inertia of Congress, the length of time it takes to get a complicated piece of legislation through ... and the other was the irresponsibility of the press.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)