BATON ROUGE — A House committee voted 12-0 to repeal a requirement that clerks of court must remove personal information about many current and former public officials from online records if the individuals requested their removal.

The provision involving the clerks’ offices is part of more sweeping and controversial legislation passed over the last two years that allows a wide range of officials and judges to demand that individuals and organizations retract personal data like birthdates and addresses if they are posted online.

People or groups that refuse to retract the information can face up to 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine.

The only exemption was for the Secretary of State’s office, which needs to gather personal information to qualify political candidates.

But after complaints from clerks of court around the state, the Committee on House and Governmental Affairs voted Tuesday to advance a bill, House Bill 67, that would exempt the clerks from what they said would be a difficult and time-consuming task of scrubbing the data from court, property, divorce and other records involving the officeholders.

“The acts of 2024 and 2025–we need to amend them to have clerks mirror the Secretary of State as far as the required publication or non-publication,” the author of the new bill, Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, said. “So, this is an alignment bill.”

Bacala’s bill still needs to be approved by the full House and Senate and signed by the governor to change the law.

Law professors and civic groups have blasted the earlier legislation for carving out public disclosure exemptions for current and retired judges and current statewide elected officials, legislators and district attorneys that regular citizens do not have.

But other than exempting clerks of court from having to follow the law, the bill passed Tuesday does not change any other aspects of the earlier legislation.

In fact, the committee also voted 11-0 Tuesday to advance House Bill 339, which would add current police officers and current or retired administrative law judges to the list of protected individuals.

The current law states that public offices, except the Secretary of State, cannot publish these individuals’ personal information like addresses, phone numbers and financial information. If requested, they must take it down.

Rep. Tehmi Chassion, D-Lafayette, the author of HB 339, presented it in committee. Chassion said the bill was a response to an incident in his district where someone under police investigation sent text messages to an officer telling him what the color of his curtains were in his home.

“It was to be understood that ‘I know who is investigating me, and I can pull your information up on my tax assessor’s website,’” Chassion said.

If Chassion’s bill is eventually signed into law, officers could send state and parish organizations requests to remove information on their websites.

Both the current law and the new bills affect state and local websites. Google searches may still show personal information.
Steven Procopio, the president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, said that restricting personal information that is publicly available, like home addresses, would likely be ruled unconstitutional given previous Louisiana Supreme Court rulings.

“I don't think it's a good look for the Legislature to say, ‘Hey, look, we don't want to make sure our home addresses are online—which, I get it—but that is, in fact, part of your qualification for running,” Procopio said.

Procopio said that keeping financial information private is already covered under other state and federal laws.

He said the law, Bacala and Chassion’s bills, create a different standard for protecting financial information for elected officials compared to regular residents.

McHugh David Jr., the executive director of the Louisiana Press Association, opposed Chassion’s bill. He said that the current law makes it more difficult for journalists to report, and it will likely become more difficult as the law continues to expand.

Rep. Delisha Boyd, D-New Orleans, who sponsored one of the earlier laws to help public officials keep their information private, said journalists would still be able to use public records requests to get some of this information.

Chassion added: “The sheer notion of me wanting to protect a person that spends day and night protecting me as a police officer–to protect them from anyone uncovering their telephone number, home address, social security number, driver’s license number, bank account number, debit number, license plate and the location of my child’s daycare? I’d be willing to fight that constitutionally.”