The Oklahoma Bar Journal October 2026

G overnment & A dministrative L aw P ractice

Efficiency and the Open Records Act By Christian Rinehart

T HE OKLAHOMA OPEN RECORDS ACT (ORA) has the paramount goal of ensuring that all political power is inherent in the people. In fact, the purpose of the ORA states that “it is the public policy of the State of Oklahoma that the people are vested with the inherent right to know and be fully informed about their government.” 1 This sentiment can be boiled down to one word: transparency. The American revolutionary Patrick Henry stated the importance of transparency as follows: “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” 2 Oklahoma, like other states and the federal government, recognizes that transparency in gov ernment is important, and the ORA is designed to ensure the public can be informed about governmental operations while allowing public bodies to adopt reasonable procedures that protect record integrity and prevent excessive disruption of essential functions. 3 While trans parency in government is undoubtedly important in Oklahoma, recent statutory changes and case law developments continue to shape how the ORA is administered in a manner that seeks to balance transparency with the efficient use of public resources and taxpayer dollars.

other material regardless of physical form or characteristic.” 5 To gener ally qualify as a record under the definition, the record must also be “created by, received by, under the authority of, or coming into the cus tody, control or possession of public officials, public bodies or their rep resentatives in connection with the transaction of public business, the expenditure of public funds or the administering of public property.” 6 In late 2025, the Oklahoma Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether “metadata” quali fies as an open record under the

definition of record in 51 O.S. §24A.3 in the case of Brooke v. Reed . 7 In that case, the requestor, Mr. Brooke, requested the records from the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) on COVID-19 cor respondence between OSDH and the governor’s office. 8 OSDH pro vided 11,000 files in PDF format in response to the ORA request, and Mr. Brooke argued that the PDF format did not include embedded metadata to make the documents searchable. 9 Mr. Brooke contended that the documents should have been provided in the native

RECORDS SUBJECT TO THE OPEN RECORDS ACT The most important place to start with an open records issue is whether the requested material qualifies as a record under the ORA. “Record” specifically does not include computer software or nongovernment personal effects. 4 It includes “all documents includ ing, but not limited to, any book, paper, photograph, microfilm, data files created by or used with computer software, computer tape, disk, record, sound recording, film recording, video record or

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL