With only eight state legislatures still in session the legislative die for 2023 has largely been cast. There’s always a chance that one of those states could still make mischief, but when the calendar turns to Dec. 31 it’s likely we’ll be able to say it was a pretty good year for public notice.

PNRC has been tracking approximately 230 bills introduced this year that have at least a minimal connection to public notice law. Forty-eight have been signed into law. Of those 48 bills, 13 will probably have a slightly negative effect on government transparency while the impact of about 20 others will be moderately positive. The remainder will have little to no substantive effect.

The fact that the self-storage industry wasn’t able to make any progress this year in their quest to eliminate lien-sale notices should also be considered a positive development. Self-storage operators went 0 for 6 on bills designed in part to allow them to avoid having to publish those notices in local newspapers. After getting at least four such bills passed in both 2021 and 2022, the self-storage folks went down to defeat this year in California, Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon and Texas.

The only significant public notice legislation enacted this summer was Oregon HB-3167, the passage of which made Oregon the second state to give e-editions the same statutory force as printed newspapers. North Dakota approved a similar provision earlier this year. HB-3167 also allowed free-circulation papers to qualify to publish notice in limited circumstances and added content standards to the state’s public notice law, including a requirement that “at least 25 percent of the total news content is locally and originally composed by the newspaper.” The bill took effect when it was signed by Gov. Tina Kotek on July 13.