Gov. Nathan Deal signs SB 323, with amendment influenced by Kirby Smart, into law
State athletic departments in Georgia will have up to 90 days before returning requested open records.
On Monday, Gov. Nathan Deal signed Senate Bill 323, which included a late-addition amendment that gives athletic departments the ability to hold intercollegiate documents for a 87 extra days than the previous three allowed under the previous law.
The House of Representatives' amendment, tacked on to a Senate bill that allows the state to withhold documents that have to do with "economic development," was added and agreed upon during the final week of the legislative session, and after midnight on March 23.
gapol bill signed: SB 323 https://t.co/lutHi7xrvm
— Maggie Lee (@maggie_a_lee) April 11, 2016
State Printing and Documents; public disclosure not be required for any documents pert…
The law will go into effect on July 1.
On the House floor, state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, argued that the amendment aids programs from disclosing information pertaining to recruiting.
"This will help the startup programs, this applies to every single intercollegiate program in this state, every university from the University of Georgia … (to) any intercollegiate sport at a D2, D3 school," Ehrhart said. "It just allows us to play on the same field as Alabama and everybody else."
Of course, that point has since been refuted considering reporters rely on information gathered by recruits themselves, high school coaches, families and sources within the collegiate programs they cover.
While legislators spun the amendment, which was agreed by the Senate on a 31-22 vote, as a recruiting issue, the amendment states that all documents can be withheld up to 90 days. Private athletic departments associated with universities are subject to the state's Open Records Act but now have this specific provision.
The amendment has been linked to Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, who admitted to speaking about the issue with state legislators during a February visit to the Capitol. Smart was initially linked to the amendment when Tom Krause, the Chief of Staff to state Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, mentioned he was the inspiration behind it.
"It's a similar subject that, from what I understand, came to light through Kirby Smart at UGA," Krause told The Telegraph. "It had to do with football teams or athletic departments that are recruiting people in state of Georgia. They had a (shorter) window where the documents were not yet public, but other states had 90 days."
When asked about his involvement, Smart tried to distance himself on the issue.
"First of all, I shouldn’t get any credit for that," Smart said. "When I went over to the Capitol, I was asked what’s the difference in our program and some programs I’ve been at in the past. One of the things I brought up — there’s a difference. That was the extent of my conversation with those guys about that. So for me to get the credit for that is a little bit misleading."
Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity has also voiced support of the amendment, but not for any reasons dealing with recruiting documents.
"I’m a very process oriented person, as far as notification to approval," McGarity said. "We have to operate in that world now. As I’ve told y’all several times, if it’s drafts of contracts, it has to operate in another stratosphere because otherwise it would be an open record for you. It makes our job difficult to handle just our normal business to where we can’t work as more effectively as we could, dealing with everything from facility development to drafts of contracts. It makes our job that much more difficult. That’s why I think it’s helpful administratively for all institutions that are involved in this."
This story was originally published April 11, 2016 at 4:38 PM with the headline "Gov. Nathan Deal signs SB 323, with amendment influenced by Kirby Smart, into law."