Want to know what your government is up to? Texas law on public records needs update | Opinion
By Kelley Shannon, Star Telegram, February 06, 2023
Many Texans believe our state is exceptional; the historic Public Information Act is one of the reasons it is special. The 2023 legislative session is an excellent time to improve this landmark law governing the people’s right to know.
“The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know,” according to the law, born after the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal that gripped state government.
Despite those bold words, the act has been eroded by subsequent legislation, court rulings and maneuvers by some government officials to sidestep it. In the current Texas legislative session, we, the people, must insist that lawmakers protect and strengthen the Public Information Act and maintain our state’s open government legacy.
The Texas Sunshine Coalition is doing exactly that. Sixteen diverse organizations are working together to push for bipartisan transparency legislation. The nonprofit Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas is part of the coalition and was founded on the belief that access to public records allows everyone to scrutinize and speak up about government.
The Sunshine Coalition aims to shore up the Public Information Act so that taxpayers can view “super public” information and other key provisions in government contracts; uniformly define “business days” to determine when governments must respond to public records requests, even on days of remote work; require that governments provide certain data to requestors in searchable and sortable spreadsheets; and restore public access to dates of birth in criminal-justice and political-candidate records.
Another pillar for the coalition is to allow recovery of attorneys’ fees if a requestor must sue to get public information. A series of court decisions have made this extremely difficult by allowing governments to hand over documents at the last minute — after months of litigation — and avoid paying any of the requestor’s legal fees. Consequently, governments may be inclined to ignore or delay records requests.
