The 83rd Texas Legislative Session is just a few weeks away. Lawmakers already are pre-filing bills and committees are meeting to decide what issues they want to address.
One of the issues that always gets plenty of attention and debate, just like balancing the budget and funding education, is the reach of the state’s open government laws. We trust the legislators will remember why those laws are so important, and why they shouldn’t be weakened.
Fortunately, the Texas Open Meetings Act and Public Information Act are among the best in the country, and recently we’ve had attorneys general who have defended them well. Unfortunately, the laws are too often challenged by officials who consider them a nuisance, not a protection.
The Senate Open Government Committee met last month to hear testimony from people who want the laws weakened, as well as those who wish to keep the public properly informed about what their officials and agencies are up to.
Several issues come up virtually every session, including officials’ desire to contain those who file, in their eyes, frivolous requests for public information. Changing technology also raises issues about the delivery and cost of gathering and delivering that information.
Some issues include how long emails and other computer records need to be kept, and whether communications made on officials’ private phones, computers or email accounts, but that deal with governmental functions, should be subject to the law. While private property must be respected, it’s obvious that officials should not be allowed to circumvent public scrutiny of their actions, deliberations and decisions simply by using their own communications devices.
Officials and contractors often fight to keep information about contracts out of the public’s eye. In some cases their reasons are valid, such as to protect trade secrets or prevent people from trying to profit, at taxpayers’ expense, from information on possible land purchases or incentives offered to attract business development.
In many cases the decisions on such matters is subjective. Who’s to say what requests are frivolous – a local gadfly who believes he’s serving the community and keeping officials honest with constant requests for information, or the officials who must bear the burden of gathering the information every time a request is made? Must officials be able to provide information in any of several common formats that a requestor might want, or should the people requesting the information be willing to acquire the software that can read whatever the agency or department provides?
Ideally, the growing sophistication of computer software and data retention should make it easier for agencies to store greater amounts of information, and access it quickly – if it’s properly planned and organized. Officials should keep this in mind when they are updating their records or software, and ensure that records can be accessed easily and efficiently, to ease the cost and time for both those providing the information and those requesting it.
The value of public access to government information should be easy to see. Public records requests have helped people identify dangerous intersections and lobby for traffic signals that would make them safer. Those who recall the huge bid-rigging scandal in Hidalgo County in the 1990s surely recognize the importance of keeping the light of public disclosure shining on government’s activities.
We trust that lawmakers will remember the principles behind our open government laws: The people have a right to know what their elected officials are doing and how their tax dollars are being spent. Officials, and the clerks who have to gather the information, might not like the requests, but if those requests are reasonable they should be honored.
Reprinted from The Brownsville Herald, Brownsville, Texas
