The U.S. House yesterday passed bipartisan legislation that would make PACER free for the public, handing a win to transparency advocates despite the federal judiciary’s opposition to the bill, the National Law Journal reported. The Open Courts Act of 2020, introduced by Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.), gives the judiciary four to five years to update and modernize its electronic case management and case filing systems known as CM/ECF and PACER. It’s now up to the Senate to approve the bill and President Donald Trump to sign it in order for it to become law. The House Judiciary Committee advanced the legislation in September, with members of both parties voting in its favor. Federal judiciary leaders oppose the bill, claiming it would be expensive to make the system free. James Duff, director of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, asked House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in a letter yesterday to stall the bill, claiming its current version “will have devastating budgetary and operational impact on the judiciary and our ability to serve the public.” Talking points distributed by the judiciary and obtained by the pro-transparency group Fix the Court suggest the AO believes it could cost at least $2 billion to build the new system. In Tuesday’s letter, Duff asked Hoyer to delay consideration of the legislation until the spring, when the first phase of a GSA study on the cost of a new system is expected to be completed.
