New Texas state law on public officials' private messages allows citizens a behind-the-scenes peek in current controversy

After the Texas Legislature adopted the historic Open Meetings and Open Records Acts, in the wake of the Sharpstown Bank Scandal that brought down many Texas leaders, Harris County Commissions Court turned to Houston Chronicle reporter Kay Moore (my wife) to interpret the law for them. The arrow points to Kay in the audience.

Twice during the past six months the Garland city council has had extensive conversations about the Texas Legislature's Senate Bill 944 adopted during the most recent legislative session.

One councilmember even wrote his blog about it.

Every time the subject arose, it has left me scratching my head and asking, "Why the hubbub?"

Why was this particular Texas Legislative bill so important to our city council?

My curiosity was heightened when, during the second session in which council discussed the matter, the Garland city attorney commented that he could find no indication that any other municipal governmental body in Texas had spent as much time discussing the matter.

Since the bill seemed to be an update written to close certain loopholes created by new communication technologies not specifically referenced in the Texas Open Meetings and Open Records Acts of the early 1970s,  I decided to poll friends who are either newspaper editors, former newspaper editors, professors of journalism, or retired professors of journalism across Texas. Some of them were, as we were, very deeply involved with the Open Records and Open Meetings Acts when these historic and crucial laws were adopted by the Texas Legislature in the early 1970s. (More on that later.)

"Never heard of it," was the common response about the new bill. One person wondered what was going on in Garland that would prompt the discussion on council and then my inquiry.

A few took the time to look up and read the bill. Still, the response was, "What's the big deal?" They saw it as merely a mechanical update of existing Freedom of Information and Open Meetings laws—just underscoring what most of us already believed, that new forms of communication are included.

Some questioned, like I do, why Garland city council spent its time on this matter when it had more important things to do.

My favorite response came from an astute retired journalist who follows this blog regularly:

"Perhaps, the council members’ elevated interest reflects their recognition of how they’ve previously used digital connections to surpass or exclude citizen interaction, input AND oversight and to adeptly avoid media watchdogs on questionable deal-making and decisions. Use similar language in your Citizen Moore blog."

What the bill does is codify and bring up to date—because of all the new widespread technologies such as text messaging and Facebook messaging in recent years—essentially what the original Texas Open Meetings and Open Records Acts set in stone in the early 1970s. (This was long before at least two sitting Garland city council members were born and before the majority of those on council had ever moved to Garland.)

Setting off a statewide scandal that culminated in the Texas Legislature adopting the Open Meetings and Open Records Acts that revolutionized Texas politics, Frank Sharp, left, and his attorney, Jerry G. Hill, leave the federal courthouse in Houston after a deposition session in a stock fraud case. (Photo courtesy the Houston Chronicle)

The basic principle in those Acts was to declare that public officials must never meet as a quorum in secret or communicate with each other as a group in secret without following specific legal guidelines (closed executive sessions under strict guidelines including public notice). The act extended to public officials meeting with citizens under the cloak of darkness—the laws were aimed particularly at individuals who might be offering bribes or other forms of political payoffs.

The laws further gave citizens the right to see documents originated by, created by, or used by our leaders in their public duties.

All Senate Bill 944, which became effective on September 1 of this year, does is bring electronic communication—emails, text messages, posts on websites used by elected officials—securely under the umbrella of an Open Records request. And well it should!

Some of our city officials are complaining that the law makes too much work for them. No, it doesn't! It's their use of private devices for city business that makes more work for themselves. All they have to do is separate their personal from their public lives and stop using personal electronic equipment for city and  local political purposes. When they engage in city business or city political activities, they need to do so using their city-owned cell phones and city-owned email accounts. That way the records are indelibly archived for posterity—the city owns those records; these public officials don't have to worry with taking their time to make legal copies of what they've said or done and turn them into the city's archives.

It is a very, very simple matter.  The warning to our politicians is clear: Don't co-mingle your public and private lives. And don't do anything even questionable while in office—because, as the old saying goes, "Your sins will find you out".

At the end of the last session when our city council discussed the Senate Bill 944 matter, it ended with talk about everyone getting a city-owned cell phone. That was a wise decision. Not every one of the nine opted to do that, but each should.

Public officials must understand that they are being held to a higher accountability than are ordinary citizens. They are, after all, public officials using and administering public resources and funds.

Since the Dallas Morning News acts as if Garland hardly exists and since the city has no print daily newspaper, SB944 provides one more secure avenue for citizens to find out what is really going on behind the scenes in their city government.

Our politicians are not free to use private email accounts, private cell phones with private text messaging, or websites in certain cases to quietly manipulate public issues. Private communication with one's spouse or children or even neighbors is one thing. Communicating with citizens and other politicians about city-related issues is another matter altogether. If a matter involves public resources, influence, or power, it's the public's business to know—plain and simple—how it is being used. That is the very definition of governmental transparency.

Senate Bill 944 says public officials are to keep records of all such communication about public issues—albeit on private cell phones, private email accounts, etc.—and be able to make those readily available when called on (in an Open Records request and presumably a Grand Jury investigation, or even a criminal investigation.)

If I sound like I'm on soapbox strongly supporting unequivocally these laws, it's because I am.

Kay and I became involved with the Open Meetings Act and Open Records Act decades ago quite by historic accident. We were living in Louisville, KY, where Kay worked for United Press International and I was a graduate student in theology, when the Sharpstown Bank scandal erupted in 1971 in Houston. The bank was proved in court to have been involved in complicated stock-swap payoffs in secret meetings with public officials in Houston, Harris County, and Texas. Out of that nasty mess, which took down most of the Texas leadership in 1971-73, the Open Meetings and Open Records Acts were born.

We became involved with the two Acts when we moved to Houston in January 1972 after a whirlwind graduation tour through the Middle East and Europe. We both went to work at the Houston Chronicle on February 7, 1972. I was assigned to cover religion. Kay was assigned to cover the Harris County Commissioners Court and the Harris County civil courts.

Harris County Commissioners Court was then under the public microscope because of the Sharpstown Bank scandal and the implications for that governmental body. That naturally put Kay on guard, with our Chronicle editors constantly looking over her shoulders to make sure she was watching those politicians carefully. She even carried a copy of the new law in her purse and produced it on a few occasions when commissioners gathered in quorums in such places as break rooms or hallways where they weren't supposed to be together discussing official county business.

In one case, during a packed Commissioners Court session (pictured on this page), some commissioners publicly turned to Kay, a newspaper reporter sitting in the audience, to interpret the law for them. (That transcript is posted on this page also.) That was because the law was so new, the public was so angry about the scandal, and the new law flew in the faces of the way Texas politicians had been operating previously that the Houston politicos suddenly realized they needed to carefully watch their every step for fear of ending up in jail (as some of them eventually did).

Here is the actual 1975 transcript of Harris County Commissioners turning to Houston Chronicle reporter Kay Moore for clarification of the new Open Meetings law—an unusual step in that day for a governmental body.

Over in the Harris County Criminal Courts building the trials of those involved, including bank founder and owner Frank Sharp himself, were under way. Our friend, John Durham, was covering those trials. Imagine my surprise when the prosecution called the Rev. Charles L. Allen, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Houston (then the largest Methodist church in the world), to the witness stand and my supervisor called on me to get involved. Frank Sharp had been a member of that church. Charles defended himself steadfastly and nothing ever became of his testimony, but it was a fascinating lesson for me on how the tentacles of corruption can reach out and cast aspersions on apparently innocent people.

So at our house in the early 1970s, the Texas Open Meetings and  Open Records Acts were more than just "pillow talk"—we lived with those laws for days, weeks, months and years. Kay could almost awaken in the middle of the night and recite the Open Meetings Law by heart! I grew to know every nuance in the law, too.

Now comes the latest chapter: the controversy in our Garland neighborhood over plans by two newcomers to convert one of the local historic homes to a pregnancy care center and call it a church. The matter erupted further this week with a public revelation of a legitimate Open Records Request by a well-known Garland citizen for cell phone text messages and emails as well as other correspondence involving one Garland councilmember in whose district the proposed church/pregnancy care center is situated.

The text and email messages that have been released so far focus on what degree of involvement this one city councilmember has had in coaching the applicants—to what degree that councilmember has advised them, coordinated with them, and encouraged them to take the current mid-course u-turn as the case has progressed. The next batch of text and email messages procured by the same individual under the Open Records Act may be available next week and may prove even more interesting as this matter unfolds under the microscope.

Whatever becomes of the current issue over the pregnancy-care-center-calling-itself-a-church matter, one thing is certain: Garland can thank Senate Bill 944 for making it easier for citizens to gain access to what our politicians have been doing—and are doing—behind the scenes in this situation as well as many, many others.

Never again should any of our city, county, or even state officials feel they are "safe" to carry on the public's business behind the scenes without eventually the truth coming out. The current controversy is awakening Garland citizens to their rights to obtain accurate information through the Open Records Act on matters of public interest. It's really a very simple process! Call the Garland city attorney's office for directions.

Thank you, Texas Legislature, for this underrated but wise new piece of legislation! And thank you, Garland city attorney's office, for enforcing this and all other aspects of the Open Meetings and Open Records laws in Texas.

The public has an absolute right to know what all is involved in decision-making by our leaders. These laws are an avenue for providing that information to us.

******
For more information on the Sharpstown Bank Scandal which brought down much of the Texas leadership 1971-1973 and served as the springboard for the Texas Open Meetings and the Open Records Acts, use this link to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpstown_scandal