UPDATE — JULY 11, 2026

The provisions this report warned about are out of the bill — for the second time.

At the June 30 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco again stripped AB 1821 of its fees, its purpose test, and its "malicious intent" lawsuit provision. The committee passed the reduced bill and sent it to the Senate floor. What remains is the narrow, original-intent version the Assembly approved in May: the initial response window would shift from 10 calendar days to 10 business days, and the "unusual circumstances" extension from 14 calendar to 14 business days. The three structural changes this analysis examines below — charging by the hour for "commercial" requests, letting agencies ask why you want records, and suing requesters for "malicious intent" — are no longer in the text.

Assembly Bill 1821, moving quickly through the Legislature, would rewrite California's 58-year-old Public Records Act — letting government agencies ask why you want records, charge by the hour for requests they label "commercial," and sue requesters they judge to be acting with "malicious intent." This analysis explains what the bill does, which Lodi and San Joaquin County records it would put at risk, and how its "representative of the news media" exemption would land on the small, shrinking set of outlets that still cover this region.

AB 1821 cleared the Assembly 55–12 on May 27 in a narrow form, then was rewritten in the Senate. The far-reaching provisions face their first vote today, June 30, in the Senate Judiciary Committee (9:30 a.m., 1021 O Street, Room 2100). No Senate floor vote is scheduled; a floor vote — and a return to the Assembly to concur in the Senate's changes — would follow only if the bill clears committee. The provisions described below are the current amended text and may still change.