Rick Perry's Governing Style: Secrecy Over Straight Talk?

Rick Perry's Governing Style: Secrecy Over Straight Talk?

By Kenneth P. Vogel & Ben Smith | Politico | 9/15/11 7:26 PM EDT

Excerpts:

“Gov. Rick Perry’s straight talk may have made him an instant star of the Republican presidential field, but even some of his supporters say his frank one-liners don’t reflect his governing style in Texas, where Perry has been criticized as one of the most secretive governors in the country.

At home, Perry has fought for years to keep even mundane details of his schedule, spending and decision-making away from reporters and the public.

He faces pending lawsuits over his office’s refusal to release travel records and a clemency review for a since-executed inmate. He’s under pressure from open government advocates to release his full schedule. And in response to a once-lonely quest by a Wisconsin blogger, Perry’s office has temporarily stopped its practice of deleting emails after a week.

And late last week, his team quietly finalized the settlement of an ethics complaint that accused his campaign of hiding how hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions were spent at his taxpayer-funded mansion on flowers, food, drinks and party supplies.

With voters outside of Texas eager to learn more about the presidential contender, Perry’s secretive streak is frustrating efforts to examine his home-state record and leaving him vulnerable to suggestions – like those that he’s previously leveled against his own rivals – that maybe he’s hiding something.

The digital information framework in Texas owes at least as much to the state’s aggressive press corps and public interest lobbying community, Bunting said.

He also questioned how faithfully Texas adheres to its transparency policies, citing a 2007 report that gave Texas a failing grade of 53 out of 100 on fulfilling public information requests, though that still placed it in the middle of all states.

Though other states have email retention policies sometimes calling for deletion after 30 or 45 days, Texas’s seven-day period is possibly the briefest, Bunting said. The policy, a holdover from former President George W. Bush’s gubernatorial administration in Texas, calls on staffers to print out emails that might be covered by the Texas Public Information Act, but there’s no check on their judgment.

In 2007, the unusual system attracted the attention of a Wisconsin-based freedom-of-information advocate, John Washburn. He has temporarily foiled the deletion policy by submitting requests for Perry’s office’s internal emails every few days, though a previous effort to use the regular requests to block deletions was effectively stymied by the administration’s charging him more than $350 each week to fill his ongoing request

It’s a mark of tyranny. You hide things from the people who have to make decisions about them,” Washburn told POLITICO.

Perry also has refused to release a range of existing records that have been made public by both his predecessors in Texas and by governors of other states, including his daily schedule, his office’s reviews of death penalty cases – even lists of guests who stayed overnight at the governor’s mansion.

Perry does not release daily schedules in advance as governor except for public meetings, and, in response to public records requests, he has released only spare schedules that, according to a Texas Tribune analysis last year, contain far less detailed information than those of his big state counterparts, including then-Govs. David Paterson of New York, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida.

When asked whether he’d voluntarily release more information about his schedule, Perry said in an October 2010 interview “I think we give so much information already that it is boring.”

The governor’s office won a ruling from the state attorney general’s office that mansion guests’ names do not have to be made public, and governor’s office spokeswoman Allison Castle told POLITICO “we do not maintain a record of mansion guests.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, Perry has withheld information sought in about 100 requests filed under the Texas Public Information Act, instead appealing the requests to the attorney general’s office, which has sometimes found itself in conflict with Perry’s office over the public information law.

When Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office ruled against Perry in his bid to withhold documents related to a $4.5 million state grant to a major donor’s company, the company sued Abbott’s office, bottling up the documents at least temporarily. And when Abbott’s office ruled that Perry couldn’t withhold documents related to his 2003 budget proposal, Perry reportedly asked allies in the state House to push ultimately unsuccessful legislation to make budget documents secret.

Likewise, Perry turned to allies in the legislature this summer for legislation that would delay the release of his security detail’s travel records for 18 months - after the 2012 election. Their travel vouchers were sometimes among the only public records tracking his whereabouts, since most of Perry’s travel has long been funded by private donors not subject to rigorous government disclosure requirements.

The Amarillo Globe-News said in a July editorial that there “are extravagances contained in that security expense report that could prove embarrassing to Perry.”

“I know the governor’s life has been threatened” on “several” occasions, said Miller, though he added “I can’t and I wouldn’t release any details on that.”

Ken Whalen, executive vice president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association, which lobbied against the 18-month security record blackout, traces Perry’s inclination towards secrecy back to 2004, when the press reported, based on the records of his security detail, that Perry, his wife and several top advisors and donors had gone on a trip to the Bahamas where state money was used to rent scuba and golf equipment.

“He was never a transparency advocate, but I think that was the first time that it affected him, and he was embarrassed, so he developed this mentality,” said Whalen. “First, he’ll fight not to release it, and then if he has to release it, then they’ll go back and try to change the law to try to withhold what he doesn’t want to release.”

In addition to the travel voucher law, Perry has signed into law bills raising costs for the public to access government records, and sealing the identities of concealed handgun owners.

Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog group, last year filed a complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission alleging that Perry was violating campaign disclosure laws by failing to list specific vendors and items purchased over the years with more than $800,000 in campaign cash that he had listed only as “Mansion-Fund” expenditures.

And last Tuesday, the ethics commission finalized a settlement in which Perry’s gubernatorial campaign agreed it had violated the disclosure rules and “acknowledge(d) that future reports will include (more detailed) information, and that the committee will disclose political expenditures.”

In exchange for the admission and the pledge to be more forthcoming on future reports, the commission did not fine Perry and agreed to keep the report confidential, though Texans for Public Justice provided it to POLITICO.

“The governor has promised not to break the law again, and that’s good, but maybe a little punishment would have had a deterrent effect,” said Andrew Wheat, research director for the watchdog group.

While a separate public records request eventually determined purposes of some of the expenditures, including more than $56,000 for food and beverages, as well as payments for invitations and cable bills that included hundreds of dollars in charges for “movies and events,” Wheat said such expenses ‘should be up there and transparent for any Texan who wants to look.’ ”

Read full article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63618.html
…….

Well, it is beginning to look like Rick Perry is just another sleazy politician who is constantly using campaign anf public funds for his own use, is afraid of letting the news or public in on even his daily work activities, his guests at the governor’s mansion, and how much public money he spent on invitations, lavish parties, movies, trips to the Bahamas and outright many thousands of dollars used for private activities.

Be aware that he has promoted himself as a deeply religious man, but his intense secrecy, spending of campaign funds, and increasing the cost to anyone seeking information on his financial and governmental activities, vacation expenses, and his easy way of stashing money away from public scrutiny. I would say that Rick Perry is hiding a plethora of things.

He appears to be nothing but a huge phony, straight in the footsteps of other Texas governors, with no clear morality where his concerns lie, and he has been conning the Texas voters for all these years. I am certain that he will continue to do the same if he ever becomes president.

Geez, Texas guys…can’t you even come up with one candidate that isn’t sneaky, money grubbing, lying, and corrupt?