Texas used to pride itself on government transparency, but now, documents that are released through public information requests are largely redacted.
Texas Monthly contributor Nicholas Gutteridge sat down with NTX Now's Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning to discuss this phenomenon, which he writes about in his latest piece, "The Death of Government Transparency in Texas."
These interview highlights have been edited for length and clarity.
Gutteridge says his piece was born out of the controversy at Texas A&M last fall, when university President Mark Welsh and a professor were both fired after a video went viral of that professor discussing gender identity during a lecture.
Gutteridge wanted to learn more about how a decision like that was made, and investigated by filing public records requests, a process that is legal under the Texas Public Information Act.
One thing Gutteridge was surprised to keep running into was officials who deleted their digital correspondences.
"One of the big things that really changed my perception about public records in Texas is when we were talking to this top official and they told us outright that one of the big things the regents had started doing in anticipation of public information requests was immediately reading text messages and emails and then immediately deleting them afterward," Gutteridge said. "That's an issue for numerous reasons, right? Firstly, it's against the law to tamper with public records."
After the mass shooting in Uvalde in 2022, videos and information were withheld from the public. Some say these are key missing pieces to better understand the tragedy, but Department of Public Safety officials claim they will not release the information due to an ongoing investigation.
"[That] is a difficult explanation to look at, especially considering it's been so many years since the tragedy," Gutteridge said. "The perpetrator is dead. There's a media coalition that sued for these records and that lawsuit has been ongoing for years, and yet DPS still has not given up these records — even when they could help explain this massive state tragedy."
Gutteridge says to move forward, change has to come from lawmakers.
"True widespread reform has to come from the legislature, has to come from lawmakers who see what's happened to the Public Information Act, to the Open Meetings Act, and really push forward with actual reform that allows the author's vision of a transparent, free, open government to fully be realized," he said.
Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning are the hosts of KERA's NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Miranda at msuarez@kera.org or Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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