(This article was corrected on April 28, 2022. See below for corrections.)

Press associations in four midwestern states are supporting bills that would update their states’ public notice laws.

Legislatures in Minnesota and Nebraska are considering bills that would require newspapers to post all notices on their press association’s statewide public notice website. Also in Minnesota, and in Missouri, lawmakers may respond to an evolving local media environment by relaxing standards newspapers must meet to qualify to publish notices. And in South Dakota, the legislature has already passed a bill with primary elements identical to the legislation being considered in Minnesota.

South Dakota

House Bill 1075 sailed through both chambers with only one dissenting vote and was signed into law last week by Governor Kristi Noem. It takes effect July 1. In addition to making South Dakota the 16th state (correction: revised from “15th state” on April 28) to require notices to be published on a press association’s statewide website, HB-1075 obligates newspapers to:

• Post notices on their own website or include on their home page a prominent link to the South Dakota Newspaper Association’s statewide site;
• “Conduct general newspaper business” at the paper’s “known office of publication” for at least eight hours per week; and
• Include an inscription in each print notice that the ad may also be viewed on SDNA’s statewide website. This inscription would be published along with a statement about the cost of the notice that is already required by state law.

HB-1075 also makes South Dakota the first state to allow newspaper editions published electronically to be considered toward publication-frequency standards that help to define legal newspapers in the state. Current law requires dailies to publish in print at least five days a week and weeklies to publish a minimum of 50 weeks per year, but some papers have moved to “a schedule that’s a combination of print and e-edition,” said SDNA Executive Director David Bordewyk.

The new law ensures that hybrid model will not be fatal to a paper’s legal status. “We’re trying to catch up with what is happening in the marketplace,” Bordewyk explained.

HB-1075 was designed to rebut legislative attempts in recent years to weaken the role newspapers play in providing public notice. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tim Reed (R-Brookings), testified the legislation was a chance to enact a proactive solution for public notice.

“This bill protects the publication of notices by an independent third party while recognizing the enhanced search and reach capabilities of the Internet,” Reed told the House Local Government Committee in January.

Nebraska

The Nebraska Press Association is also facing little pushback so far against its bill that would both mandate use of a statewide website and incrementally increase the state’s public notice fees. Like South Dakota’s HB-1075, the web publishing requirement in Nebraska’s LB-840 represents a proactive solution to counter recent attempts to move public notices to government websites.

At a hearing last month before the General Affairs Committee, senators were receptive to NPA’s bill, including its 11.1 percent rate increase that would be implemented over two years. “One senator even asked if this was enough of an increase,” noted NPA Executive Director Dennis DeRossett. It’s the first public notice rate increase proposed in Nebraska in 26 years (correction: revised from “25 years” on April 28).

There was no testimony in opposition to the bill, which passed out of committee on an 8-0 vote. NPA is now seeking expedited passage in the state’s unicameral legislature.

Minnesota

House File 3682 and Senate File 3457 would relax eligibility standards for official newspapers and require them to post notices on the Minnesota Press Association’s statewide public notice website. More specifically, these companion bills introduced late last month would:

• Authorize e-editions of a newspaper to help meet publication-frequency requirements in the state’s general public notice statute; and
• Eliminate fixed circulation minimums, merely requiring “more than a nominal percentage” of total print circulation to be distributed in the area of the notice. The legislation also stipulates that standard would be met as long as “there is a reasonable likelihood that the person to whom it is directed will become aware of the notice.”

The statewide website posting requirement in HF-3682/SF-3457 would be an addition to the statutory mandate in Minnesota that already obligates newspapers to publish notices on their own websites. The bills would also now require them to post a link to the webpage on their site containing those notices.

HF-3682/SF-3457 makes several other minor changes to the state’s public notice law, including eliminating the publication fee if a mistake is made in a notice and it’s the fault of the newspaper.

MPA’s member newsletter last week reported the association has “received positive feedback from legislators of both parties about the bill, and (it expects) to have the first committee hearing fairly soon.” The newsletter also noted that so far the legislation, which is designed to make “the law better synchronize with the expansion of digital communications,” has faced “no serious opposition.”

Missouri

The Missouri Press Association has tried to get a statewide public-notice website bill passed for the last two years but has turned to other concerns this session. House Bill 2289 would relax eligibility standards for official newspapers by reducing the “consecutively published” requirement from three years to one year. It would also increase the minimum interval during which a “successor” newspaper must begin publishing from 30 days to 90 days after the previous public notice newspaper closes.

In drafting its bill, MPA discovered at least 16 other states that had public notice laws requiring newspapers to publish for less than three years to be considered an official paper. It’s reasonable to believe a paper can “prove its worth in one year,” argued Mark Maassen, executive director of MPA.

By the same token, by giving a “successor” paper 90 days rather than 30 days to begin publishing “allows prospective owners to take over a paper” without being forced to publish before they are prepared to do so, Maassen said. Urgency to amend existing law crystalized when a recent “successor” paper barely met its deadline by publishing it first issue on the 28th day after the previous official newspaper closed.

HB-2289 passed a committee last month and was immediately referred to the House Legislative Oversight Committee. An identical bill passed the House last year by a vote of 152-0 but never made it to the Senate, largely because of legislative gridlock entirely unrelated to press issues. Sometimes, “making the sausage takes years,” Maassen said.