States take different approaches to allocating time for public comments at public meetings and courts across the country have provided some guidance on this issue. Most states do not expressly require, via statutes or legal precedent, time for public participation in public meetings, although it has become a customary practice to allow individuals to speak. Often in the case of school board meetings, members of the public are required to provide notice, or to register, with the board well before the meeting to be allowed to make a comment.

The Florida Supreme Court has recognized that public comments in open meetings are important in maintaining an open government. The court has stated that government bodies “should not be allowed to deprive the public of this inalienable right to be present and to be heard at all deliberations wherein decisions affecting the public are being made.” Board of Public Instruction of Broward County v. Doan, 224 So. 2d 693,699 (Fla. 1969). Furthermore, the Florida Code expressly provides that members of the public have a right to participate in local government meetings regarding land use, but the comment time can be regulated by the decision-making body. Fla. Stat. § 286.0115(2)(b).

California has a statute that requires public bodies to allow for public comments at meetings. Cal. Gov. Code § 54954.3(a). A California case provides legal precedent for when a public meeting is continued to a later date for some reason. In Chaffee v. San Francisco Library Commission, 115 Cal. Rptr. 3d 336 (Cal. App. 2004), a public meeting was continued to a later date after the meeting body lost its quorum to continue. A California citizen bought suit alleging that the state sunshine laws (or open-meeting laws) required public comments at every meeting of a public body, not just a comment section on each agenda. The California Court of Appeals in the 1st Appellate District held in favor of the public body by holding that public comments are mandated only once per agenda, not once per body meeting. Allowing for public comments at each meeting regarding the same meeting would cause a “surplusage,” the court said.

Some states, such as Wyoming, statutorily make it a right of a public body to prevent willful disruption of a meeting by removing anyone causing a disruption or by taking a recess. Wyo. Stat. § 16-4-406.