Hawaii Makes Progress in Moving Public Notices Online… Deep Pockets At Civil Beat Could Spell Trouble for Local Papers

This has been a busy two weeks in on line legal notice activity. Hawaii has a bill which has passed the Senate unanimously. California has a new very clever bill proposed. Virginia’s Press Association succeeded in convincing legislators to water down the bills attempting to save the state money.

*Virginia*’s Legislature, which had the most promise for passing 8 state wide bills to move notices on line, caved to the pressure of the Virginia Press Association. As of our last report http://legal-notice.org/blog/virginia-2-line-legal-notice-bills-pass-va-house-delegates-large-margins, only two bills remained alive which could potentially save the taxpayers money without continuing to subsidize the printed newspaper industry.

* House Bill 234 http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+sum+HB234  would have reduced the amount of information required to be published in the newspaper about a time-share being sold under foreclosure. It  passed the House by a huge 98-2 margin on February 14. Prior to the bill going to the Senate and bowing to lobbying by the Va. Press Association, the wording that would have reduced the amount of information required to be published in print, was changed and the requirement to publish an absurd amount of information in print was reinstated. The bill, whose purpose was to “reduce the amount of information required to be published” was neutered and ultimately will save the state nothing while reserving the subsidy to newspapers. The bill will most likely be signed.

* House Bill 1193 http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?ses=121&typ=bil&val=HB1193 would have required local public bodies to post required procurement notices on the Department of General Services’ central electronic procurement website and makes newspaper publication optional. It passed the House of Delegates 78-21 but was set aside by the Senate’s Committee on General Laws and Technology by a 10-4 margin.

In *Hawaii*, we reported last http://legal-notice.org/blog/hawaii-senate-committees-vote-bill-which-allows-moving-public-notices-line that Senate Bill 2233

http://www.capitol.hawaii.measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=2233 had made it out of multiple Senate Committees. Since then the Senate Ways and Means Committee slightly watered down the bill (State-wide notices can be moved out of the statewide paper and into a local paper and county-wide notices can be published on line) and recommended passage. *The Senate unanimously passed the bill 25-0* and it is now in the House where the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on March 15.

Hawaii is unique in that there is a very well written on line newspaper, Honolulu Civil Beat, that has a deep-pocketed owner who could be influential.

*Florida* took the first step in moving notices on line. Both the House and the Senate passed the bill and it was sent to Governor Rick Scott for signing. HB937 http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bill/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=48170 appears benign. It saves the state and local governments no money. It just mandates that notices published in print are also published on line.

The newspapers see this as a victory but it sets them up for the next round of legislation which should say that notices will no longer need to be in print (see below).

We’ve saved the best for last. *California*, the largest state and the most technologically progressive (as well as the most troubled financially) has proposed the most thoughtful bill yet from any state since we’ve been covering this issue. Instead of enforcing that the government publish notices, http://totalcapitol.com/?bill_id=201120120AB1902 in detail expands the definition of newspaper of general interest to on line
newspapers.

Ironically, the need for this bill came from the situation that exists in many rural areas where the print newspapers have now deserted them while on line publications have come in to fill the void of news provider.

We will examine this in our next post as this bill successfully refutes the independence issue which the newspapers have successfully used to protect their franchise. This measure could be heard in committee by March 24.

Related articles

• End of Public Notices in the Newspapers Could Spell Trouble for Local Newspapers (damontucker.com)
• Legislature passes public notice bill (mysanantonio.com)
• Newspapers to lose their monopoly on publishing legal notices (kevin.lexblog.com)
• NJ Lawmakers Mull Posting Legal Notices Online Instead Of In Newspapers (newyork.cbslocal.com)
• N.J. bill eliminating requirement to run legal notices in newspapers scheduled for vote in Senate, Assembly (nj.com)
• Hawaii Legislature Considers State-Owned Bank (damontucker.com)