Four Bills Strengthening FOIL for Sunshine Week

March 14, 2024

It’s Sunshine Week! As part of our advocacy for open, accountable NY government, Reinvent Albany issued memos of support for the following bills:

S8671 (Hoylman-Sigal) – Requires agencies to submit FOIL logs to Committee on Open Government.
S8128 (Skoufis) / A8586 (Raga) – Reduces time public must wait to appeal FOIL delays and denials.
A5357 (Steck) / S5801 (Liu) – Strengthens FOIL attorneys’ fees. This bill is also supported by Common Cause NY, League of Women Voters of New York State, and NYPIRG.

We also urge the Legislature to support the following bill:

S3257 (Hoylman-Sigal) – Limits commercial FOIL exemption. This bill is also supported by BetaNYC, Citizens Union, Common Cause NY, League of Women Voters of New York State, New York News Publishers Association, and NYPIRG. This bill is on the Senate Floor Calendar.

We urge the bills to be voted out of committee, and passed by the full Senate and Assembly.

In case you missed it, here is a letter signed by more than 30 groups calling for the Legislature to pass major FOIL reforms.