During recent testimony before a state House Committee on the Delivery of Government Efficiency, one fact became painfully clear — the battle to keep government open and transparent is far from over.
From dragging their heels on Freedom of Information Act requests to timely releases of police reports, it seems folks at many city halls, courthouses and even state offices don’t really want to follow the American tradition of government by the people, for the people.
Information is power. However, in too many government offices peopled by mid-level bureaucrats, the fountain that should flow freely with knowledge has the information spigot turned down as low as possible or even just plugged.
Testimony before the bipartisan committee of 13 House members painted pictures of city hall staffers in some parts of Texas scrambling to create smoke screens as the press and public strive to uncover allegations of municipal corruption, fraud and waste.
Others spoke about the unwillingness — perhaps out of an abundance of caution or acrimony over the antics of the national press — by some Texas law-enforcement agencies that refuse to follow case precedent for public disclosure. Instead, these officers violate open-records guidelines by releasing only the bare minimum reports on criminal activity.
None of this helps the taxpayers who fund these public servants’ jobs.
It’s not just journalists who are stymied, according to the testimony in Austin before DOGE last month, but also ordinary residents just trying to get a handle on what’s going on at government outlets.
One of the arguments in favor of such slowdowns is the old chestnut that government clerks sometimes are deluged with frivolous requests for volumes of records. While that is true in some cases, everything comes with a price — even openness and transparency at a city hall or a school district office.
While there are civil remedies for governmental bodies that refuse to comply with, or at least make it difficult to honor, open-records laws, suggestions for further steps to create accountability included withholding state funding from local political subdivisions.
Hitting a school district or a city hall in the pocketbook might make some city managers or city attorneys — and the same for administrators at school districts — think twice before trying to throw up roadblocks on information requests.
A big beef centers around laws forbidding the release of dates of birth. While the legislation some years ago stemmed from a hack of government databases, today it is an unwieldy measure that does little to protect privacy and does much to create confusion and even pain.
For example, when defendants who have a common name are arrested, it is essential to have their date of birth so they are not confused in word or image with the innocent. As of this writing, a bill is being consider to repeal the measure.
The time has come for the light of public disclosure to burn bright. Only then is the truth revealed.
Thomas Edwards
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