Open records laws provide public access to government documents and meetings, but must they provide equal access to every member of the public? In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they do not, affirming that it was permissible for Virginia to exclude non-state residents from its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Virginia’s FOIA provides access to public records for state citizens only, and state agencies had denied various FOIA requests by the plaintiffs on the grounds that they were not state citizens. The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments that the denials violated the U.S. Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities and dormant Commerce clauses, holding that (1) the state did not abridge any constitutionally protected privilege or immunity and (2) Virginia’s FOIA does not regulate commerce in any meaningful way. Rather, it held, the law is a mechanism by which state citizens, who ultimately hold sovereign power, may obtain an accounting from the public officials to whom they delegate that power
