{"id":8221,"date":"2018-03-23T19:18:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8221"},"modified":"2018-03-23T19:18:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:18:59","slug":"sunshine-week-group-works-to-bolster-tx-public-information-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8221","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine Week: Group Works to Bolster TX Public Information Act"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Open<\/a>

Open government advocates and media groups plan to work with the Texas Legislature to strengthen the Texas Public Information Act. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s Sunshine Week, and Texas open government advocates are calling for greater accountability from public officials.<\/p>\n

The Texas Public Information Act, created out of reforms made in the 1970s, was once considered a model for transparency in public institutions, but over time, its ability to provide access to government information has been watered down through legislation and court rulings.<\/p>\n

Kelley Shannon, director of the nonprofit group\u00a0Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas<\/a>, calls government accountability one of the most important parts of democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t get information about your government, you can\u2019t effectively participate in your government, regardless of what issue it is that interests you,\u201d she stresses. \u201cWhether it\u2019s the environment or health care, or education, you\u2019ve got to have information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunshine Week is an annual observation and reminder to citizens of the importance of holding the government accountable.<\/p>\n

Shannon says the\u00a0Texas Sunshine Coalition<\/a>\u00a0is made up of advocates and media organizations, and is observing Sunshine Week for the entire month of March. The group is having events statewide to discuss how to strengthen Texas freedom-of-information laws.<\/p>\n

Shannon says several Texas Supreme Court rulings have weakened the ability of Texans to obtain public records.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a gradual, and fairly recently, a big sudden problem of holes being knocked in our Public Information Act so that anyone \u2013 regardless of what type of media you\u2019re in, or if you\u2019re an individual citizen \u2013 is having trouble getting information,\u201d Shannon states.<\/p>\n

She says her group works with Democrats, Republicans, businesses, local governments and others to make sure there is open access to public information.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody ought to be about transparency and openness,\u201d she states. \u201cIt\u2019s a big tent, lots of room in there, and if you\u2019re doing your job right and if you really have the people\u2019s interests in mind \u2013 if you\u2019re doing what you should be as a public official \u2013 you ought to welcome openness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shannon says the Texas Sunshine Coalition also plans to work with lawmakers in the next state legislative session to improve laws protecting public access to information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0It\u2019s Sunshine Week, and Texas open government advocates are calling for greater accountability from public officials. The Texas Public Information Act, created out of reforms made in the 1970s, was once considered a model for transparency in public institutions, but over time, its ability to provide access to government information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8222,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8221\/revisions\/8222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}