fWotD Episode 2572: City of Champaign v. Madigan

Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.

The featured article for Monday, 20 May 2024 is City of Champaign v. Madigan.

City of Champaign v. Madigan, 2013 IL App (4th) 120662, 992 N. E.2d 629 (2013), is a case decided by the Illinois Appellate Court in 2013 concerning the state's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The court ruled that messages sent and received by elected officials during a city council meeting and pertaining to public business are public records subject to disclosure, even when those communications are stored on personal electronic devices. It was the first court ruling in Illinois to hold that private messages were subject to public disclosure under FOIA.

The case addressed a public records request from a reporter for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois, who observed Champaign city council members and the mayor using their personal electronic devices to send messages during a city council meeting. City officials denied the reporter's request for disclosure of the private messages. The case eventually reached the Appellate Court, which held that public officials have to disclose their records, even if they are stored on a personal electronic device or account, but only when acting as a public body. The court found that members of a city council do not constitute a public body when acting individually. However, because the city council members in question had convened a public meeting, they were acting collectively as a public body, and their messages were therefore subject to disclosure under FOIA.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:03 UTC on Monday, 20 May 2024.

For the full current version of the article, see City of Champaign v. Madigan on Wikipedia.

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Until next time, I'm Olivia Neural.