Legislation requiring state agencies to publish official notice on their websites was killed last week in committees in Indiana, Georgia and West Virginia.

After passing the House last month by a comfortable margin, Indiana HB-1312 was defeated in a Senate committee by a vote of 8-2. The bill allowed every public notice in the state to eventually be posted on a state-agency website. It was rejected a week after the Hoosier State Press Association (HSPA) organized a statehouse rally at which “more than 100 Indiana publishers, editors, reporters and subscribers gathered outside the Senate chambers” to oppose the bill, according to Johnston County’s Daily Journal.

At a March 13 hearing, HB-1312 sponsor Rep. Jennifer Meltzer and government agency lobbyists said the bill was necessary because local governments “have struggled to get notices published in a timely fashion in non-daily newspapers,” reported The Seymour Tribune. Rep. Meltzer made the same claim to support legislation she sponsored last year that made Indiana the first state to authorize government units to publish notice on some newspaper websites or e-editions instead of print. That bill was supported by HSPA.

Georgia SB-189 authorized the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) to develop a public notice website and required notices published in newspapers to also be posted on the DCA website for up to $25 per notice. It wouldn’t have displaced newspapers from the public notice process, but would have allowed notices to be posted on the DCA website in lieu of newspaper publication if no papers maintained an office within a particular county. The bill also stipulated notices posted on the state-agency website would be legally valid if “an error is made in the text or publication date” of the newspaper notice.

The committee that considered SB-189 decided not to move the bill, according to a newspaper industry source who opposed it. After learning 400,000 notices were already published every year at no cost to taxpayers on the Georgia Press Association’s statewide public notice site, committee members concluded the cost of building the DCA site didn’t make sense.

In West Virginia, SB-891 required the state auditor to maintain a State Central Legal Advertising website and allowed all official notice to be posted on the site free of charge. It retained the first publication of every newspaper notice but authorized subsequent insertions to be posted on the state-agency website in lieu of newspaper publication. It was rejected last week by a Senate committee in a bipartisan voice vote, according to the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, which reports the state auditor’s history with digital notice and the progress of the West Virginia Press Association’s statewide public notice site dissuaded committee members from recommending it to the full Senate.

HD Media publisher Doug Skaff, Jr., who has served as interim executive director of WVPA since last year, testified in opposition to the bill. He contrasted the state auditor’s current public notice website, which was mandated by law in 2021 and generated little traffic, with WVPA’s statewide site, noting that the latter “is an overwhelming success.”

“In the last 30 days, 100,000 people visited wvlegals.com to check for public notices,” Skaff said. “It’s working.”

Skaff served as Minority Leader of the West Virginia House of Representatives until he stepped down from that position in 2023. He resigned from the House later that year, and after changing parties in 2024 he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Secretary of State, placing second in the Republican primary.

Mississippi

In Mississippi, a bill raising rates for the first time since 1998 passed unanimously in both houses last month. HB-598 increased private-party notice fees from 12 cents to 25 cents per word for first insertions and 10 cents to 23 cents for subsequent insertions. It takes effect July 1.

The bill also mandated an automatic annual rate increase based on the Consumer Price Index and raised rates for proofs of publication from $3 to $5. A provision in the bill that would have remedied publication mistakes via publication on a newspaper or local government website, and the Mississippi Press Association statewide site, was stripped from the bill before it passed.

Alabama

Mississippi is not the only legislature this year to consider safe-harbor provisions to protect government agencies from mistakes made by newspapers in the publication process. At least seven other states have or are considering similar provisions, including Georgia in the bill discussed above.

The highest profile safe-harbor measure is moving through the legislature in Alabama, where HB-320 amends the statute requiring newspaper notice for sealed bids on public works projects. It allows multiple alternative methods of government website and/or mailed notice to cure publication failures. The bill also authorizes the Department of Finance to adopt rules allowing for the publication of curative notice on a newspaper’s “website or digital version.” It is supported by the Alabama Press Association and passed the House unanimously last month.

HB-320 was triggered by an incident in 2024 when the Alabama Department of Transportation (ADOT) was required to rebid a road project because a newspaper failed to publish the original bid notice. The mistake ended up costing the state $1.7 million. A non-profit conservative news website in Alabama reports four other ADOT projects were delayed last year as a result of newspaper publication mishaps.

Texas

Companion bills authorizing “digital newspapers” to qualify to publish notices in certain circumstances were introduced in Texas last week. Backed by the Texas Press Association, SB-1062 and HB-3782 were designed for situations in which an official newspaper is forced to close its print edition in a county where no other papers qualify to publish notice under existing laws. To qualify as a digital newspaper, publications must have an “audited paid-subscriber base”; been in business for at least three years; employ staff “in the jurisdiction of the governmental entity”; report on local events and governmental activities in the jurisdiction; and provide general interest news and update it at least once a week.

Oregon

In Oregon, newspapers are preparing for two work sessions this week, one of which will focus on a bill that allows online-only local news websites and free-circulation newspapers to qualify to publish notices. HB-3431 also amends fee limits for notices, from one based on per-column inch open display rates to one tied to “the average rate charged local advertisers.” The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association opposes the bill, which is supported by local news websites. 

Legislators in Oregon appear to believe HB-3431 adds only local news websites to the type of “news publications” that are eligible to publish notices. But it eliminates the current statute’s paid-circulation requirements and also clearly applies to free-circulation newspapers that meet the bill’s content requirements, whether or not they have a website. Confusion over the language in a bill had an impact in Oregon last year, when some local news websites began publishing notices after government units in their towns misinterpreted an amendment to the state’s public notice statute that was passed with the support of ONPA in 2023. The amendment was designed by its sponsors to apply only to e-editions published by official newspapers.

Self-Storage

The other bill scheduled for a work session in Oregon this week is SB-433, which authorizes self-storage facilities to advertise lien sales “on a publicly accessible website that regularly advertises or offers property for auction or sale” in lieu of the newspaper notice required under the current statute.

An even less transparent self-storage measure was enacted in Idaho last month. Idaho S-1126 eliminates all public notice for self-storage lien sales. The only notification now required before a lessee’s property can be sold must be sent “by certified mail or as provided for in the rental agreement to the lessee at his last known address.” This is the first statute we are aware of that banishes all public notice for self-storage lien sales.

Self-storage bills have also been introduced in at least seven other states, including Missouri, where similar or identical legislation has been introduced for at least the past five sessions. The self-storage industry tortures transparency advocates in the Show-me State by introducing multiple versions of the same bill every year, forcing their opponents to play whack-a-mole to ensure self-storage operators are required to inform the public before they sell their lessees’ property. A hearing is scheduled today on HB-668, which is identical to both SB-513, which was heard last week, and HB-757, which was also heard last week and passed out of another committee. All three bills allow self-storage operators to advertise lien sales “in any other commercially reasonable manner” in lieu of newspaper publication. Say a prayer for the folks at the Missouri Press Association.