Public's right to know depends on press freedoms

I've worked as a reporter and editor for small-town Texas newspapers for over 15 years.

During that time, I've dealt with many sensitive or highly controversial topics, and even a confidential source or two, but never has a local prosecutor asked me to testify in front of a grand jury - or any jury - or to relinquish my notes or unpublished photos, or to reveal the name of a confidential source.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that few local prosecutors have ever tried to compel a reporter to testify or turn over stuff like that.

There are a lot of reasons for this. One is few local reporters ever get credible information from someone demanding confidentiality. And, even when they do, few of the people who publish small-town newspapers ever use information like this, and certainly not without independent confirmation.

Another reason is, most prosecutors work very hard to develop their cases and resort to compelling testimony from the press only as a last resort.

That's why a bill working its way through the Texas Legislature establishing guidelines for such things sounds like so much “inside baseball” to most people who read weekly and small daily newspapers - and to most of the people who work at them.

But, it's not just some esoteric debate fit only for policy wonks. Not any more.

Over the last few years - and especially the last year - there have been several high-profile cases that illustrate the peril reporters invite when they offer confidentiality to a news source.

I don't have to detail those cases here - the Valerie Plame case and the BALCO steroids investigation have gotten tremendous coverage - but they seem to mark the end of an admittedly uneasy truce between the news media and the government that has existed since the end of the Watergate era.

Quite suddenly - at least, at the glacial pace of jurisprudence - the unspoken agreements and policies that have for years moderated relationships between the working press and prosecuting attorneys has begun to morph dangerously - at least from a standpoint of press freedoms.

Should journalists have at least some protection against subpoenas seeking to compel testimony or the surrender of notes and tapes?

In Texas, reporters will risk jail time if they refuse to hand over their notes and unpublished photographs or reveal sources to whom they have promised confidentiality. That threat, which was seldom ever invoked, is now very real.

Open government advocates, press associations and citizen-driven public policy groups in Texas say yes, there should be some sort of protection for reporters. County and district attorneys in Texas, along with other law enforcement officials, say no, there shouldn't.

Prosecutors' arguments boil down to: It is a citizen's duty to give truthful testimony when asked. Why should journalists be any different?

Advocates of the bill respond this way: The government has all kinds of incredibly persuasive tools to compel cooperation. It is important that the press have some protections - even if those protections are strictly limited - else it is little more than another arm of the government. If so, this creates a chilling effect on the ability of the public, for which the press is a surrogate, to criticize the government and look into governmental corruption.

The Texas Free Flow of Information Act (SB966 sponsored by Senators Rodney Ellis and Robert Duncan, and HB 382 by Rep. Aaron Pena and HB 2249 sponsored by Rep. Corbin Van Arsdale) seeks to strike a balance between these two positions.

It grants very specific and limited protections for confidential sources, work derived from confidential sources and related notes, and sets out a three-pronged test that, when met, allows a prosecutor to compel testimony.

Simply, it codifies the relationship that most of the press in Texas already has with most of the county and district attorneys in Texas.

When people have access to a free and unfettered flow of information, they make better decisions and can hold officials accountable. Allowing reporters a limited ability to protect confidential sources only strengthens the public's ability to get good information and that strengthens our democracy.

This is good legislation and deserves support.

This column was syndicated to Texas newspapers April 2007.

Access to public information unearthed TYC scandal

If you ever needed an example of the importance of our state's open government laws, you need look no further than the current scandals rocking the Texas Youth Commission.

Last month, the Texas Observer broke the story about how TYC officials ignored, then tried to cover up evidence that administrators at the Pyote unit in West Texas molested several boys in 2004 and 2005.

The Dallas Morning News broke its coverage Feb. 19, two days later and, the next thing you know, everyone knew about it.

Texans exploded in anger and the revelations touched off a legislative firestorm. The more the story came into focus, the more the vastness of the problem became apparent, the more enraged everyone became.

The governor appointed a special master and a new administrator. Last week, Texas Rangers, DPS troopers and attorney general staffers staged an unannounced occupation of TYC offices statewide. Newspapers carry tales of new, horrible discoveries every day.

There are allegations of physical abuse, extortion, and over 750 instances of sex abuse.

Certain TYC officials had managed to keep it buried - even though the Texas Rangers investigated early allegations - but, once people started digging, it just all spurted out like pus from a gangrenous sore. It shows no sign of abating any time soon.

And it all came to light because Texas has laws protecting your right to know what your government - and its various, labyrinthine agencies - are doing in your name.

A handful of diligent reporters heard a tip then used the Public Information Act to unearth all the documents, records and emails they needed to build the story. Then they started asking questions. Lots of them.

Before long, a different group of very powerful people started asking some rather pointed questions of their own.

And that shows no sign of abating either. Thank God and, apparently, it's about time.

We can't tolerate this kind of criminal behavior against people put in the state's care. Never mind that these juveniles are serious trouble, many of them. As individuals, they are very nearly helpless in the clutches of the State. No matter what they've done to earn their time in the TYC, they shouldn't have to fear physical or sexual abuse at the hands of the people who control their fate.

This awful circumstance is exactly what our open government laws were intended to uncover. It's a shame that not everyone really understands importance and intent of those laws.

According to an Associated Press story published Sunday, a handful of Texas newspapers recently conducted an informal public records audit and the results weren't encouraging.

Reporters went to nine local agencies across the state and asked for copies of the community's emergency response plans. Congress mandated that these plans be available to the public so, except for some very narrowly defined security information, confidentiality wasn't an issue. Indeed, in the wake of the state's struggle to absorb evacuations that resulted from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, public scrutiny of local emergency response plans is entirely appropriate.

But, of the nine requests, three were denied completely. Three other requests were granted, but only after a great deal of information was redacted. At only three of the nine agencies were reporters granted full access to the emergency plans, as the law requires.

That's sad. All it took was for someone to shine a little light on the cesspool the TYC had become to uncover the abuses of that system Š but someone had to shine that light.

Who knows what might be found buried in local emergency response plans? Perhaps we'd simply find that our public officials are doing a good job preparing for the worst.

Perhaps not, but it doesn't matter. When any government official or agency decides it's okay to determine what's good for us to know and what isn't, that constitutes an abuse of our state's open government laws and an abuse of public trust.

As the TYC scandals point out, government simply works better when the people's business in conducted in the public.

This column was syndicated to Texas newspapers March 2007.

Record votes a clear path to good state government

If it's good enough for Craddick, it's good enough for the rest of us!

Folks in the Austin press corps got a big chuckle in January when Tom Craddick pushed his fellows to record how they would vote in his effort to be re-elected Speaker of the Texas House.

You see, Craddick has been a staunch, behind-the-scenes opponent of record votes in the Texas House but, when his political power was threatened, he jumped on the bandwagon - temporarily, at least - because it gave him a way to intimidate recalcitrant legislators.

The rhetoric and debate leading up to that vote was a bit dizzying. Suddenly, some of the same people who de-railed last session's record vote legislation were heard arguing forcefully in favor of record votes!

It's too bad those arguments were disingenuous. Neither Craddick nor any other House leader has any intention of actually putting into law a measure that would require all substantive votes taken in the Texas House of Representatives be on the record. In their opinion, the concept is too much trouble, good only as a tool of intimidation not as a method to ensure transparency.

Here's the issue: There is nothing in the law that requires Texas legislators to state, on the record, how they voted on important legislation. And, unless the issue is forced, legislators won't go on the record with their votes.

In just one example from the 2005 session, representatives voted to exempt themselves from a bill requiring candidates to file campaign contributions and expenditures electronically - but not their future challengers. But, you can't tell who voted how because the vote wasn't recorded.

Now, before you say that all you expect of a Texas Legislator is that he votes his conscience, know that whether or not a vote is on the record has a profound impact on the outcome. A motion to table that bill - essentially killing it - appeared headed to easy passage until a record vote was requested. Suddenly, the vote flipped, and the motion to table failed.

In other words, Texas legislators often have one set of ethics when the vote is on the record and another when it's not.

Sadly, many legislators believe this issue is important only to the media. The disdainful comments legislators made during committee hearings make that clear, and the same comments make it clear many legislators don't take this very seriously.

It's true, the media - specifically newspapers - have pushed very hard over the last two or three sessions for this kind of legislation, not because it makes our jobs easier - though, in some ways, it does. Newspapers are in favor of this legislation because it makes it easier for citizens of Texas to hold lawmakers accountable.

Ironically, legislators are all in favor of accountability (especially for educators) but not so much where it comes to their own actions.

As it did in 2005, the Texas Senate will likely approve some type of legislation mandating record votes. But, unless they can pass the House State Affairs Committee in the next week or two, none of the several bills filed will make it to the House floor for debate and that means the fate of this legislation rests in the hands of nine state representatives (see sidebar).

Texas is one of only 10 states that does not have some sort of requirement that votes on major legislation be on the record, and it's easier to find out how your U.S. Congressman or city council member voted than your state representative or senator.

Good government advocates all across the state - including the League of Women Voters and nearly every citizen advocacy group you might name - have called for this kind of legislation in Texas.

Indeed, in the run-up to the Speaker's vote, 80 Texas legislators voted in favor of record votes, at least on the Speaker's race. That some of the same people who've quashed previous attempts to mandate record votes are among these 80 legislators merely adds to the irony.

Texas legislators must end the hypocrisy of using voice votes to avoid accountability. If it's important that folks back home know how legislators voted in the Speaker's race, it's important for them to know how they voted on other important issues.

Texas House State Affairs Committee
Chairman: David Swinford (R-Amarillo)
Vice chair: Ken Paxton (R-McKinney)
Committee: Corbin Van Arsdale (R-Houston), Wayne Christian (R-Center), Jessica Farrar (D-Lindale Park), Byron Cook (R-Corsicana), Dan Flynn (R-Canton), Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) and Marc Veasey (D-Ft. Worth)

Of this committee, all voted in favor of having a record vote for Speaker of the House, except Jessica Farrar and Marc Veasey who were only two of 16 legislators to vote against Rep. Tom Craddick for Speaker of the house.

This opinion column was syndicated February, 2007.

Perry’s orders are out of bounds

You might almost feel a bit of sympathy for Rick Perry. Almost.

After all, it isn’t often that the leader of one of this nation’s greatest states get his hand slapped by both the legislative and judicial branches of government, all in the same week.

Last Tuesday, State District Judge Stephen Yelenosky rebuked Gov. Perry’s executive order to “fast track” the permitting process for a clutch of new coal-fired electrical generating plants.

Then, the very next day, the House Public Health Committee repudiated Perry’s mandate that all sixth-grade girls be vaccinated for the human papilloma virus. Since the bill the committee was considering had 90 sponsors, it’s probably a lock for passage when it goes to the House floor for debate.

It’s as if Perry had said, “Hey, guys … let’s go this way! Talley Ho!” and the state’s legislators and judges turned around, looked at him askance and replied, “And, who are you, exactly?”
And, really, that’s as it should be. In these two cases, at least, Perry overstepped his authority, and the folks against whom he trespassed told him so.

On the one hand, the state’s judiciary ruled the governor can’t just set aside processes and procedures, designed to curb the damaging excesses of big polluters, simply because the permitting rules take danged near one year to observe. On the other, legislators took serious umbrage at Perry’s decision to bypass the legislative process in favor of a flat mandate for a health issue that probably deserves a great deal of public debate.

You have to wonder a bit at Perry’s “fast track” order, especially after the furor raised in rural Texas by the proposed Trans Texas Corridor. I agree we’ll need the power in the not-too-distant future (just like we’ll need to address our highway system) but is this really the best way to go about it?

And, why are we in such a hurry?

And, do we really want to return Texas to the bad old days when power plants belched thick, black smoke into the air, refineries pumped toxic sludge into our bays and trucks drove through our residential streets spraying DDT to control mosquitoes?

I don’t think so. While the process to permit a new power generating plant can be expensive and excruciating, that process is there for some very good and very sound reasons.

Besides, the plants will probably get approved anyway. It’s Big Bid’ness, after all. This just gives us all a chance to get used to the idea.

On the other issue, I have to admit a grudging respect for Perry while at the same time wondering at his incredible hubris. If his heart’s in the right place (and, on this issue, I believe it probably is), that decision took a lot of courage. There are few orders he could issue more likely to profoundly upset his base than one mandating a vaccine, that controls the spread of a sexually transmitted disease, be given to sixth-grade girls.

On top of that, we’re Texans, by gum! We don’t kowtow to just anyone. I mean, who is this guy to tell us how to raise our kids!? (Never mind that the vaccine will also likely prevent the most common form of cervical cancer in a tremendous number of women and, like the power plants and highway, be approved anyway.)

Perry must miss his days as lieutenant governor. The Governor of Texas barely has the authority to blow his nose on his own, much less make sweeping, unilateral changes to environmental and public health policy. Texas may be one of the greatest states in the nation but everybody knows its governor is among the weakest.

The lieutenant governor is the state’s most powerful elected official and even he has to bow to the appearance of a legislative process. But, even then, the lieutenant governor is only as powerful as the Senate allows, which it usually does (for modern examples, see Bob Bullock, Bill Hobby, et al.).

Oh, uhh ... as I recall, the Senate curtailed the lieutenant governor’s power those two years Perry held the post.

Instead of side stepping the rules, Perry should encourage vigorous public debate on issues that are sure to be controversial. This is laudatory and well within his purview as governor. Anything else smacks of overweening pride and behind-the-scenes deal making.

This column was syndicated Feb.2, 2007.

Farewell to Marble Falls. Again.

It’s funny, the roads life takes you on. You just never know where you’ll wind up.

Over the years, I’ve run a drug store, sold life insurance, stereo gear and radio advertising; newspaper advertising, too.

I’ve published four different newspapers and worked for five others. I even ran a radio station that only broadcast during daylight (we called it “solar powered radio”).

I’ve helped raise a couple of kids — and the daughter of the woman I love. I’ve trod the boards of several community theaters. Played guitar, spades and Risk.

I’ve seen a counselor and talked privately to several preachers. I’ve studied Zen, but not very hard.

I’ve argued with my Dad and tried to be a good one.

I’ve reported on ghastly traffic accidents that killed little kids. I’ve had to take the pictures for the DPS troopers.

Over my lifetime, I’ve lived in Harlingen, Elgin, Palacios, Corpus Christi, Victoria (twice), Taylor, Belton (twice), Austin (three times), Temple, Cameron and Marble Falls (twice). And that doesn’t count the year I spent in Alpine most of one spring.

I’ve been a Cub Scout, a Lion, a member of a church choir and I marched in the Cotton Bowl and in the Rose Bowl Parades.

I’m a Texan. I have a pair of cowboy boots and I played football in high school (but not very hard).

I’ve been through a divorce. When I married again, my new wife and I held the ceremony at the local VFW Hall. In all the pictures, a bingo sign hovers above our heads.

I’ve camped out at the top of a mountain and walked the streets of London at 2 a.m.

I’ve interviewed congressmen and a governor who became President, and slept in the home of an oil tycoon on the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lohman.

I saw Frank Zappa at Armadillo World Headquarters, Stevie Ray Vaugh at Auditorium Shores and ZZ Top at Memorial Stadium.

I was a lifeguard at a church camp and bagged groceries and pumped gas.

I volunteered for Sissy Farenthold’s campaign for governor and helped park cars at LakeFest.

I actually planned to have very few of these experiences. Certainly, I’ve planned and executed specific events (you can’t fly to London without some advance preparation, not on my income) but, looking back, the grand sweep of my life’s major events have been somewhat spontaneous.

John Lennon was right when he said, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”

It’s both the sublime beauty and ridiculous curse of this mortal coil. You may think you are driving toward a simple goal when life jerks you up by the short and curlies and reminds you that, sometimes, you’re simply a passenger on the journey because, this time, someone else is driving the bus.

So, I’ve learned to be flexible because few plans survive contact with the gears of life. Life is more than the plan. It is the journey. (Any good Calvinist would recognize the irony in these thoughts, especially as they are expressed by a lapsed Presbyterian.)

We didn’t plan to leave Cameron. Life presented us with an opportunity and we took it. We didn’t plan to live in Marble Falls (for the second time!) only six months. One of life’s other aspects – in this case, a teenager’s immutability combined with a mother’s love – re-focused our attention on life’s paramount claim.

So, Tia Rae and I are going back to Cameron, she to be her daughter’s mother and the Feature Editor of the Temple Daily Telegram, and me to be a supportive husband and step-father and — well, I don’t really know yet but something will turn up, I’m sure.

I don’t regret our decision to come to Marble Falls. I learned a lot and believe I made a difference for some of the people working at this newspaper. I’ll miss the friends we made here and dearly wish we could have stayed longer.

I do regret the opportunities we missed to reconnect with old friends. We were able to see a few of you but not enough, and not for nearly long enough.

But the road we’re on has taken a direction different from the one we’d planned to travel. Not because that’s what we planned, it’s just one of those funny things in life.

This was originally published in the River Cities Daily Tribune, August 2006.

The Ragged Edge: Coping with directional challenges

I’d like to thank all the sharp-eyed readers out there who went out of their way this week to point out to me what a lousy sense of direction I have.

Like I really needed this reminder that entropy’s effects are inexorable.

If you’ve been following my stories about the annexation of the old Stone Hill Shooting Ranch property, you’ll have noticed that I placed this 109 acres of land somewhere north of the Marble Falls city limits. In two stories.

If you know anything about Marble Falls, Burnet County or the general Highland Lakes area, you know that this land is actually south of the city.

That’s SOUTH of the city limits.

But, since I’ve obviously taken leave of my senses, I placed the property north of town.

It started several weeks ago when I wrote my first story about how the city intended to annex the property SOUTH of the La Ventana development. This annexation process is only one chapter in a complex story that pits a developer against a major local industry and would take more space than I have here to adequately explain.

So, while searching for a way to describe the property and where it is, I turned the map upside down. It remained that way while I wrote the story. You can see the problem.

The mistake somehow survived the editing process (typically three read-throughs) and made it into print.

I caught the error the next day.

That error was promulgated in the next story, which many of you caught.
The reactions have been … interesting.

One woman called and wondered if SHE was going crazy. I assured her that it was I who tended to drive south into Burnet when I visited Judge Jones about legal issues or Judge Kithil about county stuff.

Burnet is south of Marble Falls, right? And Austin is west of here?

No?

Drat!

Another fella e-mailed me and suggested I needed to replace my compass. … but I’d just turn it upside down, I’m sure, so that’s no answer.

This is odd. My sense of direction is usually pretty good. Left and right have not been a problem for me since about the first grade when I noticed that I had a callous on the side of the first knuckle of the middle finger of my left hand. I’m left-handed and the callous was created by the way I learned to hold a pencil. Whenever I got left and right confused, I rubbed my thumb on the fingernail of the middle finger of my left hand and the confusion left me.

I can usually navigate big cities like Houston and Dallas as long as I know where I am in relation to one of the major freeways. With two or three notable exceptions, I have been fairly successful with this method of direction-keeping.

Now, I have been known to become gloriously lost from time to time. It only takes me about half an hour to break down and ask directions when that happens.

Then there was the time that my wife and I got lost at Enchanted Rock. The rock is basically round, right? Just keep the great gaudy thing on one side of us and we’d circumnavigate the thing. How hard can it be?

Harder than it looks. We were lost for hours.

As dusk descended, we decided that we could guarantee rescue if we would simply light a fire … the park rangers are pretty peckish about that sort of activity and would have come running. The fine would have been a small price for our rescue.

So, though I suspect my affliction has as much to do with the effects of entropy as anything else, I admit my problem and I’m looking for a support group that caters to the directionally challenged.

I suspect I can find some help east in Llano or south in Burnet.

This column was published in the River Cities Daily Tribune June 5, 2006.