If at first you don't succeed, legislate.
That could very well be the mantra of the UT System, which has recently lost a pair of appeals to withhold security camera information from The Daily Texan. But undaunted by the prospect of both the attorney general and a district judge throwing out the UT System and University's faulty legal logic, UT System lobbyists - nay, vice chancellors for governmental relations - have been pushing for legislation that would essentially usurp the authority of the state's top lawyer and tighten up the Texas Open Records Act.
Earlier this legislative session, Rep. Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie, introduced House Bill 1191, which would make confidential governmental information about certain emergency procedures and weapon-building. Also included was a clause that would create a new exemption in the Texas Open Records Act that would prevent the release of information "that relates to the details of a security system that is used to protect public or private property, including an access code to the property."
Allen said in February that this clause was added at the behest of the UT System. Among the people present at a hearing for the bill March 10 were UT System attorney Helen Bright and UT Director of Environmental Health and Safety Erle Janssen.
After the bill went through the House State Affairs Committee, it came out minus the Open Records Act clause. But on Wednesday, Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, one of HB 1191's authors, was on the House floor, proposing an amendment to HB 1191 that would bring back a restriction on the release of information related to security systems.
King did not appear to be enjoying himself as he presented his amendment, facing rather confrontational questioning at the hands of the likes of Reps. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampassas, Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, and Scott Hochberg, D-Houston. Hupp and Burnam expressed general dissatisfaction with the amendment in general, while Thompson questioned whether the amendment would affect the rules of discovery in the case of a civil suit. Hochberg noted that the wording of the amendment was vague.
King's answers were the type of fearmongering one could expect from a man who represents a city where parents once packed a school board meeting to demand the firing of a yearbook adviser who allowed students to print stories on tattoos and body piercing. He spoke of the "terrorists, rapists and stalkers" who could use security system information to do harm to someone's little girl who is away at college.
The federal government's terrorism war is no reason to roll back the advances made in open government over the past 30 years; if anything, it should be expanded so that elected officials can be held accountable for shortcomings in the mechanisms that protect the public. But what is even more repulsive is the fact that the UT System - an institution that should be encouraging the free exchange of information and ideas - is at the forefront of the battle to wrest democracy out of the hands of the people.
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