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Edgar Springs, a town of 200 in southern Phelps County, must now pay Rebecca Varney $750, plus almost $80,000 in attorney fees, to satisfy a November court decision that found it violated Varney’s First Amendment rights and the Missouri Sunshine Law.
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In a 2-1 decision, the Western District Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of a case challenging rules written in 2019 to limit legislative records subject to the Sunshine Law.
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After clearing a backlog of public records requests by his predecessor, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told lawmakers his office expects to finalize all sunshine requests submitted in the last year by May.
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A Missouri law passed in 2022 deletes the names of victims and witnesses in court documents, which experts say has made Missouri courts the least transparent in the nation.
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It’s taken Attorney General Andrew Bailey his entire first year in office to work through a backlog of requests he inherited from his predecessor.
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The attorney general’s office says it has five staffers working on the Sunshine Law backlog and a policy of not charging fees for processing requests. But the first come, first serve strategy has meant hundreds of requests wait in limbo for months — even years.
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A county judge has given attorneys 30 days to file final briefs after the trial which alleges Sunshine Law and civil rights violations in Edgar Springs — about 20 miles south of Rolla.
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The Missouri Attorney General's slow response times have renewed scrutiny over how the office handles enforcing state transparency laws.
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Andrew Bailey laid out the proposal in 2021 before he was attorney general. His office won’t clarify whether he still believes the changes should become law.
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A Cole County judge in November concluded Josh Hawley’s staff illegally refused to turn over public records out of concern it could have hurt his 2018 Senate campaign