WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Richard “Dick” Durbin (D-IL), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Majority Whip, addressed the house floor on Wednesday to advance the Open Courts Act, which aims to “modernize” the electronic court records system known as PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records). If passed, bill S. 2614 would consolidate case filing and tracking information across the nation’s 94 circuit courts and 13 appellate courts.
Building on the Electronic Court Records Reform Act, introduced by U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) in the summer of 2019, the new “free PACER” Act, as it has been dubbed, does away with the ¢10 cent-per-page fee charged to file, view or download court documents. “There’s no reason the American public should pay for public documents,” say supporters like Gabe Roth of Fix the Court, a non-profit judicial transparency advocacy group, which is part of the web of ‘pop up’ foundations spawned through Arabella Advisors – the left’s version of the Koch’s dark money philanthropic network.