More open government issues

The Texas Press Association government affairs team will work alongside the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and the Texas Sunshine Coalition in the fight for transparency and accountability reforms during the upcoming legislative session.
Among the issues:
• Restoring access to dates of birth in public records – access that was eliminated by an appeals court ruling.
• Plugging the “dead suspects” loophole used by officials to deny access to crime reports in investigations classified as “open” cases even though the suspect is deceased.
• Pushing for access to police records such as critical incident and use-of-force reports, as well as personnel records.
• Restoring transparency in government contracts with private businesses by addressing issues that came to light after passage of SB 943 (the Boeing fix) in 2019.
• Open records administrative issues — addressing access problems caused by government skeleton crews, remote government workers and outright failure to respond to public information requests.
• Requiring open government data to be provided to the public in a searchable and sortable format.