Opening records

Let the courts deal with Ward; lawmakers should pass new public information bills.

A face familiar to Houston television viewers appeared again on camera this week, but the circumstances represented a precipitous fall from the anchor desk she once occupied.

Darian Ward walked into a courtroom and stood before a judge who, appropriately enough, once headed Crime Stoppers of Houston. State District Judge Katherine Cabaniss will preside over the trial of Mayor Sylvester Turner’s former press secretary, who is accused of violating Texas law by deliberately withholding a cache of emails from a reporter investigating her use of city time and equipment to promote her private business.

Ward’s attorney, Chris Tritico, maintains the records weren’t public because they didn’t involve official business. But we could argue it’s the public’s business to know when a government employee is doing private business on the taxpayers’ dime — using a city computer on city time.

Ward’s prosecution is a stark warning to government employees who flout laws mandating the release of public information. The decision of Harris County prosecutors to charge Ward is an extraordinarily uncommon occurrence — even more notable in a state that’s rolling back access to the information citizens need to hold the government accountable. And that brings us to a problem state lawmakers need to address next session.

Not so long ago, Texans could brag that our state had one of the strongest open records laws in the United States. Reform-minded state lawmakers adopted The Public Information Act of 1973 in the wake of a complex banking and bribery scandal. They understood that providing access to even the most arcane government information was vital to keeping politicians and bureaucrats honest.

But indictments for violating that law have been “astonishingly rare,” according to Houston attorney Joe Larsen, an expert in public information cases. As a result, Larsen says the law is routinely violated by government employees across the state who — as Ward allegedly did — lie by claiming they don’t have public records that are actually in their files.

Meanwhile, the Texas Supreme Court struck a serious blow to the Public Information Act in 2015 when it ruled on two cases involving Boeing and the Greater Houston Partnership. In the Boeing case, the court ruled — we’re not joking —– that governments can refuse to show taxpayers copies of certain contracts with private businesses; so if you think your county commissioner is doing dirty deals with a contractor, the county government can easily keep the incriminating documents secret. In the Partnership case, the court ruled that nonprofits collecting taxpayer money to perform jobs usually done by government don’t have to open their books to the public. For all we know, folks working at those quasi-government agencies could be blowing taxpayer money at topless bars. As outrageous as it sounds, a top tourism official in Houston once was caught doing just that. How did news reporters find that out? His expense accounts were public records.

Those misguided court rulings gave a green light to secrecy that masks how our tax dollars are spent — and misspent. Last session in Austin, lawmakers in both parties proposed legislation that would have closed wide loopholes. Another bill would have provided greater access to public records hidden in private email accounts. Unfortunately, lawmakers didn’t take action on these important reforms.

“Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our government is doing in our name,” said a distinguished former Houston reporter named Walter Cronkite. We’re pretty certain Uncle Walter would have agreed that wide access to public information is essential for voters trying to hold government accountable.

If she’s convicted, Ward faces a fine of up to $1,000 and as much as six months in jail. Whatever happens in her case, we will stay on the case of lawmakers to pass open government bills that do indeed keep public institutions open and restore the kind of government transparency Texans once took pride in.