The Texas Public Information Act (PIA),² enacted in 1973 in the wake of a political scandal, codified the democratic notion that government's business is the people's business. Formerly called the Open Records Act,³ the PIA guarantees citizens' right to review and obtain copies of documents held by thousands of governmental and quasi-governmental bodies across the state, from local authorities to state agencies to the governor and Legislature (the statute does not apply to the judiciary).

The Act "forcefully articulates a policy of open government," ⁴ declaring that "the people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created." ⁵ To that end, the statute requires public entities to seek the opinion of the state Attorney General (AG) when they wish to withhold information (except under limited circumstances), and gives the AG and citizens tools to force recalcitrant officials to release clearly public documents. For all of these reasons, experts consider the PIA one of the strongest laws of its kind in the United States. ⁶

The vitality of the PIA depends largely upon public officials' willingness to strictly enforce and liberally construe the Act's provisions in favor of public disclosure. ⁷ Unfortunately, recent governmental decisions regarding open records issues have produced a frustrating pattern of one step forward, two steps back, which has eroded the overall effectiveness of the statute. Recent legislative reforms, for instance, have promoted better enforcement of the Act by requiring the Attorney General to issue open records opinions in a timely manner. ⁸ At the same time, certain legislation, court decisions and agency practices have created new delays and countless exceptions to the Act, allowing more and more information to be withheld from public view.

This report urges the state's public officials to revive the "spirit of reform" that led to the Act's creation a quarter century ago by ensuring the freest and timeliest possible flow of information between citizens and public officials. ⁹ The Act demands no less: "The people, in delegating their authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know." ¹⁰

The open records statute and other political reform measures grew out of the Sharpstown, Texas, bribery scandal, which broke in 1971. ¹¹ Houston developer Frank Sharp's bank issued unsecured loans to Texas state officials in 1969 to influence passage of two banking bills. In a lawsuit filed in January 1971, the federal Securities and Exchange Commission asserted that the bills were designed "to enable Sharp's now-defunct Sharpstown State Bank to evade regulation by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp." ¹² The suit resulted in the conviction of Gus Mutscher, speaker of the state House of Representatives, a Mutscher aide, and another member of the House. They were convicted of "conspiring to accept bribes in the form of loans from Sharpstown Bank in exchange for passing the bills Sharp wanted." ¹³

Voters directed their fury at state politicians following the scandal. Nearly half of the Legislature's state Senators and House members lost their seats in the 1972 election. The 63rd Legislature convened in 1973 under "an unusually heavy cloud of public distrust and skepticism about the veracity" of elected officials. ¹⁴ House members, under the leadership of the new speaker, Price Daniel, Jr., approved a nine-point reform package aimed at restoring public confidence in Texas government. House Bill 6 contained the open records provisions. The bill cleared the Senate on May 18, 1973, prompting state Rep. Lane Denton of Waco to note: "This is one reform bill that was not gutted, compromised or stripped of meaning." Speaker Daniel called the bill a "landmark piece of legislation." ¹⁵

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