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Under current state law, judges can require a losing party to pay the winner's attorneys fees, but judges rarely do this in public records cases. The idea is to discourage governments from withholding public records, the bill's supporters say the bill's supporters say.
"The public records are the people's records," said Rep. Deborah Ross, a Raleigh Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill. "They're not our records. They're not the politicians' records."
The Attorney General's Office would have a new division under the bill that would advise about 1,500 governmental units on public records issues. The unit could prevent disputes from going to court by mediating them, hopefully cutting the number of lawsuits while making government more open.[1]
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