AG Greg Abbott presiding over dark hour for Texas open records

Over the years I've sometimes praised Attorney General Greg Abbot for being reasonably good on his open records decisions, but data published by the Corpus Christi Caller Times suggests Abbot's watch has not been an especially happy period for open records overall ("Increase in requests to withhold public data worries advocates," Dec. 12). The fault seems to lie more at the level of state and local agencies, but clearly the AG hasn't been adequately policing the trend or focusing enough resources to solve the problem.

Bottom line: More state agencies and local governments are appealing what should be routine requests to the AG's office as a delay tactic, seemingly without consequence or penalty. "Requests that the Texas attorney general withhold information requested by the public increased 88 percent in five years, according to a Caller-Times analysis of state records."

However, "Between 2003 and 2008, when the requests to the attorney general spiked, the staffing levels of the office issuing the opinions stayed relatively flat, said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott." There's no one to blame for that understaffing but the chief administrator.

What's more, these delays are apparently causing the public to use open records requests less. At state agencies, "Between 2003 and 2009, referrals to the attorney general increased 40.5 percent, according to the state reports. During the same period, the total number of requests those agencies received dropped by 84.5 percent, the reports say."

Those are staggering figures, indicating that Greg Abbott may be presiding over the darkest hour for government transparency since the Texas Open Records and Open Meetings Acts were created in the wake of the 1971 Sharpstown bank scandal.

Twenty years ago you could honestly say Texas had among the strongest open records acts in the nation (us and Florida would have argued for top billing) and citizens here had aggressively comprehensive access to the vast majority of government records. Since then, though, the trend has all been in the direction of opacity: A series of bad court decisions, dozens of new, mostly unjustified legislative exemptions and weak enforcement by Attorneys General from both parties left us, at best, somewhere near the middle of the pack among states as opposed to a national leader on transparency.

Where are the state leaders willing to champion openness? Over the past several sessions, for the most part "good" pols on open records were the ones fighting closure bills. There simply was/is no concerted effort to roll back recent record closures; the trend appears to be a one-way ratchet.

Democrat Barbara Radnofsky who is running against Greg Abbott has an open records page on her campaign website, but it is framed not as a proactive agenda but as a political attack, aiming to "depoliticize" open records, which is an obvious reference to favorable records closing decisions made by Abbott on behalf of Governor Rick Perry.

I disagreed with those decisions by Abbott, too, but Radnofsky's stance for "depoliticization" is not really enough to fill me with optimism. It doesn't tell me, for example, any specific records closing decisions by Greg Abbott she disagrees with. It doesn't say she'd beef up staffing to process appeals faster, or what she'll do to punish agencies that abuse the appellate process. I also wish she, or some state leader, would articulate what records closed by the AG, the Legislature and the courts in the last two decades should be re-exposed to sunlight, even if it would require changing current law or court precedent. (Every AG comes into each session with their own legislative agenda.)

For me, open records is the deciding issue regarding who I support for Attorney General, over and above party labels or any other factor. I voted for Greg Abbott over Democrat Kirk Watson when they squared off a few years back because Watson's Austin mayoral stint made me distrust him on open records stewardship (state senator is a much better fit for him, IMO) and Abbott's public positions represented a huge improvement over John Cornyn or Dan Morales before him. Similarly, in this election, I'm open to Radnofsky (presumably) making the case that she'd be a more vocal and active advocate for government transparency as AG. But I'm not convinced yet.