Representative Brown on Thursday presented House Bill 497, a comprehensive package of proposed changes to New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), but the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee agreed to roll the bill for further work after extended testimony from government officials, media representatives and open‑government advocates.

The bill would create new privacy and security exemptions, add procedural definitions and timelines, permit limited labor charges for particularly large or burdensome requests, and change enforcement remedies. Representative Brown said the measure is intended as a practical starting point to reduce what many local governments call an unsustainable workload while preserving public access.

Supporters, including Sandoval County Attorney Michael Eshelman and municipal lobbyists, said a small number of high‑volume or commercial requesters and data brokers impose outsized burdens on local governments. Eshelman told the committee that Sandoval County routinely turns around many requests within days but sometimes faces repeated, costly litigation by a small number of requesters and large commercial resellers such as LexisNexis. He said the bill includes three broad categories of change: exemptions for personal and security information; clearer process rules for handling claims and requests; and adjustments to remedies and enforcement.

Opponents, including the ACLU of New Mexico, the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (NM FOG) and the Foundation for Open Government, said the bill would weaken accountability and make it harder for journalists and citizens to obtain records. Daniel Williams, policy advocate at the ACLU of New Mexico, said the bill "threatens government transparency by restricting public access to records that are critical for accountability and public trust." Lucas Pearman, assistant managing editor of the Albuquerque Journal and president of NM FOG's board, warned the $30‑per‑hour labor charge proposed for requests that take more than three hours would create a financial barrier for news organizations and members of the public.

Representative Brown walked the committee through the bill's major provisions in some detail. Key elements described in the hearing include:

- Expanded exemptions: The draft adds specific exemptions for certain personal information and for what it calls "critical infrastructure" materials, and it lists additional law‑enforcement‑sensitive items (for example, kidnapping and human trafficking material and certain photographs) as nonpublic in the bill text.

- New definitions and thresholds: The bill would define "broad or burdensome" as a request requiring more than three staff hours to locate records and redact exempt information, define "current records" as those no more than 12 months old, and provide a statutory definition of "good faith" for custodial searches.

- Timelines: The proposal would extend the response window for routine requests from 15 to 21 days and set a 60‑day maximum for producing older, archived records.

- Fees: The measure would permit labor charges of $30 per hour for work beyond the initial three hours of staff time needed to comply with a written request; the first three hours would be excluded from charges. It also contains a provision treating five or more requests from the same requester within 45 days as a single request for purposes of computing labor charges.

- Law‑enforcement delay: If a law‑enforcement agency becomes aware of a crime that relates to a records request, the bill would toll the response period for law‑enforcement records for 45 days from the date the agency becomes aware of the crime.

- Notice and administrative cure: Before filing suit, a requester could file a written notice of violation and the public body would have a fixed period to respond. The bill would change certain damage provisions from mandatory to discretionary and cap a possible award for untimely explanations at $100 per business day in some circumstances.

Supporters urged the committee to treat the bill as the start of a dialogue. Larry Horan, registered lobbyist for Sandoval County, and Matt Thompson, registered lobbyist for several smaller cities and counties, urged relief for understaffed municipal offices that spend substantial staff time reviewing video footage and other records. Cass Brewlot, general counsel for the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion, testified in favor of a "critical infrastructure" exemption, saying some broadband grant materials contain security details that, if released, could create risks to water, power and emergency systems.

Opponents said the bill in its current draft would chill scrutiny of government and grant private agencies broad authority to withhold records. Christine Barber, executive director of the Foundation for Open Government, told the committee the measure "would charge everyone $30 an hour. That includes the media, and that includes regular New Mexicans, who are the majority of requesters." Amanda Lavin, an attorney with the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, described the bill as a "fundamental departure" from IPRA's intent to provide the public with the greatest amount of information possible.

Committee members asked detailed questions about drafting and potential unintended consequences. Representative Luhan said he was "redlining a lot of things" in the bill text and suggested further work over the interim. A number of members proposed forming a stakeholder task force with balanced representation of requesters, litigants, cities, counties and state agencies.

Representative Brown told the committee she intended the bill to start a conversation and said she welcomed input; she agreed to roll the bill for further study. Sandoval County's attorney offered to host interim meetings and the sponsor invited emailed input from stakeholders.

The committee did not vote on the bill during Thursday's session. Representative Brown said she will collect stakeholder suggestions and pursue interim study before bringing a revised proposal back to committee.

"This bill was filed to start a conversation," Representative Brown said at the close of testimony. "Please send me your comments and we'll collect everything for the interim."