Some area officials resist release of full ethics disclosure forms
On Monday, Texas Watchdog reported on the roadblocks they have faced recently in obtaining full ethics disclosure forms from city and county officials.
Area officials have redacted information related to spouses reported on those forms.
Upon first glance, a reasonable person might think this is only right -- why drag spouses further into the nasty business of politics? However, as anyone familiar with The Houston Way knows, spouses of Houston's movers and shakers are quite often movers and shakers in their own right, and those sorts of connections (and potential benefits that accrue from them) can actually be of great interest to watchdogs (and, of course, the public).
Furthermore, when Texas Watchdog faced similar obstacles in Corpus Christi and objected, the state attorney general instructed Corpus Christi officials that the full disclosure forms were in the public domain, and parts could not be selectively withheld from the public. So the precedent for the release of this public information has been clearly established.
In a followup today, Texas Watchdog reports that County Judge Ed Emmett voluntarily disclosed the information about his wife to the group, after being informed that it had been redacted by county officials.
We would hope that area officials who have withheld this information are prepared to be as forthcoming as Judge Emmett, because it is difficult to imagine the attorney general is going to reverse his previous finding and reward the local stonewallers.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/13/09 10:19 AM | Print |
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