Frontlines

Groups push to require recorded votes in Legislature

AUSTIN — An effort to require recorded votes of the Legislature continues to gather steam, the letters editor of The Dallas Morning News told participants at the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas conference, The Associated Press reported.

“More and more organizations are signing up,” Jim Frisinger told the group. “It does have resonance. It’s a matter of good government.”

The paper has been running a list of those who support the effort — including Texas Press Association.

Advocates of the proposal said it would be good democracy, but a leading Republican lawmaker told the audience that requiring recorded votes would be time-consuming and unnecessary.

Linda Camin, chairwoman of the Sunshine Committee on Recorded Votes for the League of Women Voters of Texas, said there was no way the public wouldn’t support recorded votes.

Rep. Peggy Hamric, R-Houston, said recorded votes already are taken frequently. She said required votes take too much time and Texans who want to know how their legislator voted can ask the lawmaker.

Hamric said she doesn’t oppose requiring recorded votes.

Texas Supreme Court upholds political satire

DALLAS — In one of the most interesting First Amendment cases the Texas Supreme Court has handled in years, the high court unanimously ruled that political satire is a protected form of free speech, even if it’s not clearly labeled or attributes false quotes to real public officials, Texas Lawyer reported.

The Sept. 3 decision in New Times Inc. d/b/a Dallas Observer, et al. v. Bruce Isaacks and Darlene Whitten puts an end to a libel suit filed five years ago by two Denton County elected officials against the Dallas Observer, a weekly alternative newspaper.

Isaacks and Whitten were enraged after the newspaper printed a satirical article in 1999 titled “Stop the Madness” about the arrest of a 6-year-old girl for a book report she wrote, Texas Lawyer reported. That article featured Isaacks, Denton County’s district attorney, and Whitten, Denton County court-at-law no. 1 judge, and attributed false quotes to both, according to lawyers for the newspaper.

The Dallas Observer maintains the article was intended to skewer Isaacks and Whitten over an actual October 1999 incident in which Whitten ordered the detention of a 13-year-old who allegedly wrote a violent-toned essay.

Isaacks and Whitten argued in their briefs to the court that the article did damage to their reputations because many readers believed the article was true.

The court applied a “reasonable person” test to the article to determine if the article was indeed satire. Writing for the court, Justice Wallace Jefferson notes that there were numerous clues that the article was a joke, including outrageous quotes, an unorthodox headline and photo, and reference to a fictional freedom-opposing religious group called God-Fearing Opponents of Freedom (GOOF).

Bartlett violates open meetings law in firings

BARTLETT — The city council violated the state’s open meetings law in June when it fired three city employees and denied them a public hearing, Bell County Attorney Rick Miller said in court documents filed and obtained by the Austin American-Statesman.

Mayor Bobby Hill and the other five council members were charged with denying utility director Bruce Sorenson and police officers Dean Rebel and Men Burger a public hearing and failing to state the purpose of the council's closed session on June 7, Miller said.

The second charge against the city officials concerns the council’s failure to cite the section of the Open Meetings Act that authorizes closed meetings, Miller said.

HIV-positive man sues weekly over disclosure

DALLAS — A church volunteer is suing an alternative weekly newspaper for up to $1.1 billion in damages, charging the publication violated a Texas law when it reported that he is HIV-positive without getting his permission, The Associated Press reported.

The Dallas Observer identified the man in a December article about a preacher who led the Cathedral of Hope. The man doesn’t dispute that he has the virus that can cause AIDS, but he contends the newspaper broke a state law that forbids disclosure of medical test results without a patient’s written consent, except to government health agencies.

Defense attorneys say the privacy law cited by the man applies to hospitals and insurance companies, not media organizations.

Cameron to fight AG’s record ruling

CAMERON — The city will fight a Texas attorney general opinion that it must open certain records to public view, The Cameron Herald reported.

Attorneys for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad filed an open records request in February seeking information on the street crossing where two teen-agers were killed in January. The city released about 10 pages of information but claimed other parts were exempt.

“We believe the attorney general’s opinion is wrong and those documents are confidential as a matter of law,” said Sheila Limon, an Austin attorney who acts as the city attorney.

The city had until the end of September to challenge the AG’s ruling in court.

Chronicle sues sheriff over autopsy report

HOUSTON — The Houston Chronicle has sued Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas to try to force him to release the autopsy report of a man killed by a sheriff’s deputy in May, The Associated Press reported.

The sheriff’s department contends releasing the report would compromise its investigation.

In its lawsuit, the Chronicle asks the court to rule that autopsy reports and photographs of people who die in police custody are “not subject to any exception to the Public Information Act.”

The attorney general’s office previously said the sheriff’s department did not have to release the report because of the pending investigation.

Rangers to investigate mayor’s phone polling

SAN ANTONIO — The Texas Rangers will look into allegations that Mayor Ed Garza violated the Texas Open Meetings Act with a series of phone calls to city council members, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

The calls led to an effort to remove city manager Terry Brechtel who resigned.

The Express-News quoted an assistant district attorney saying the Rangers agreed to investigate.

A councilwoman raised concerns that the mayor violated open meetings laws by polling council members about their support of Brechtel in the phone calls. The calls preceded a late night summons to Brechtel to seek her resignation.

AG: Teen’s book-in photo confidential

GREENVILLE — The Texas Attorney General’s Office has ruled the photograph of a Hunt County teenager, charged with capital murder in the shooting death of a Commerce man, cannot be released.

Louron Bernard Willis, now 17, has been certified to stand trial as an adult in connection with the shooting death last July of Edi Garcia Cruz.

The Attorney General's Office denied a public information request from the Greenville Herald-Banner to obtain Willis’ book-in photo. The newspaper had sought the photograph earlier this year, prior to the original start date of Willis trial on capital murder and two counts of aggravated robbery.