The Texas Observer

While most of the attention surrounding Gov. Perry’s new book, On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For, has been focused on GoodHair’s bizarre - and dare I say homophobic - outlook on homosexuality, he also reveals remarkable hostility towards science and those old-fashioned Enlightenment values of reason and empirical truth. “You can’t have a rational discussion with the left about nature versus nurture, global warming, or the validity of evolution because they claim science has already weighed in,” he writes.

So, has science already “weighed in” on global warming and evolution? Yes - obviously. Does that foreclose a “rational discussion”? No, rational inquiry is the very process by which thinking people reach conclusions. But Perry’s position on scientific matters is thoroughly irrational and unscientific. He unfortunately - for those of us who expect elected leaders to have at least a modicum of scientific literacy - demonstrates a dangerous know-nothingness.

Yet, science reveals new discoveries all the time, and in so doing, for instance, makes the evolutionary explanation less plausible. If, however someone makes an argument for intelligent design, we are told it should be taught in a class on faith. Here we are again at a well-worn crossroads: where the left advocates tolerance while crushing dissenting views.

It’s worth pausing here to really consider what Perry is arguing: Science leads to discovery; discovery challenges received wisdom; therefore, “controversial” theories like evolution would be undermined if only intolerant leftists would allow a real debate. This is a crude parody of the scientific method done in crayon by a dull-witted first-grader. Perry seems to believe science itself is nothing more than a vehicle for liberal ideas. That’s a corrosive notion. As biologist and humanist E.O. Wilson said, “Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.” (Ironically, Perry interviewed Wilson for his book. Wilson is an Eagle Scout.)

Though scientists do not operate in a political vacuum, their work is tested not by agendas left or right, but rather by a particular theory’s ability to withstand new evidence and the intense scrutiny of peers. Science is naturally disputatious, but that doesn’t mean junk ideas like intelligent design have a place in the conversation. Creationism is as much of a “dissenting view” to evolutionary biology as the Flat Earth hypothesis is to a spherical Earth. Perry, of course, doesn’t see it that way. To his mind the time-tested theory of evolution is just another bludgeon used by the left in the ceaseless culture wars.

When it comes to global warming, many scientists who once advocated it is caused by human activity have abandoned that theory after closer study. Where are the stories on this growing scientific movement? Alas, many in the news media have already invested too much in a particular storyline, just as some scientists continue to promote It’s-All-Our-Fault theory because their research grants are dependent on it. In twenty-five years, when this theory has been discarded alongside other ideas that didn’t stand the test of time, then perhaps there will be a one-day story announcing its demise. Then the left will be on to its next theory created to advance a particular political agenda.

Perry was last heard making the (thoroughly debunked) claim that scientists were repudiating human-induced climate change last September. As it turned out, Perry based this assertion on the scurrilous research of an aide to Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” The aide, Marc Morano, is at it again in ‘08, this time with a fresh list of 400 alleged climate deniers (400!) with scientific bona fides. Morano’s 400 Club is a hoax. It includes TV weathermen, the editor of a coal industry journal, armchair experts, and real climate experts who aren’t actually climate deniers. Presumably, this list is the basis of Perry’s “growing scientific movement.”

In all the nation is there another high-level politician - Republican or Democrat - as clownish as Perry? He writes off the immense, decades-long global effort to study and understand climate change as little more than a cheap political stunt. Not even George W. Bush has achieved this level of cynicism. And though Perry offers zero proof for his claims, he goes ahead and basically accuses researchers of participating in a vast and fraudulent leftist conspiracy against humanity. For good measure he adds that they’re just doing it for the money. Then, he has the chutzpah to set a date - twenty five years from now! - when he will be proved right. Mark it on your calendar - February 2033.

As you may have heard, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, having aced his merit badge in self-hairstyling, has waded into the treacherous waters of ostensible authorship with On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For. The book, a bit astoundingly, debuted at #1 on the Washington Post bestseller list Monday (according to a press release paid for by Texans for Rick Perry), and it may have received a boost — in the lucrative homophobe market, anyhow — from a Sunday New York Times Magazine interview with the governor by a clearly astounded Deborah Solomon, excerpted below.

Solomon: On My Honor “draws on your experience as an Eagle Scout and champions the values of the Boy Scouts of America, to whom you are donating your royalties.”

Perry: “Yes, to their legal defense fund.”

Solomon: “Which has been fighting the A.C.L.U., to keep gays out of the scouts. Why do you see that as a worthy cause?”

Perry: “I am pretty clear about this one. Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation.”

Solomon: “Why do you think a homosexual would be more likely to bring the subject of sex into a conversation than a heterosexual?”

Perry: “Well, the ban in scouting applies to scout leaders. When you have a clearly open homosexual scout leader, the scouts are going to talk about it. And they’re not there to learn about that. They’re there to learn about what it means to be loyal and trustworthy and thrifty.”

Solomon: “But don’t you think that homosexuals might also be interested in being loyal and thrifty?”

Perry: “The argument that gets made is that homosexuality is about sex. Do you agree?”

Solomon: “No”

Perry: “Well, then, why don’t they call it something else?”

Like what, absurd reductivism?

We will let the governor — famously and a bit tiresomely both an Eagle Scout and the father of an Eagle Scout, and not even in the least tiny bit gay — slide on his title’s sentence-ending preposition (his grammar badge must be pending). But there’s no getting past the wrongheadedness of his message, which seems to be something along the lines of gay people are obsessed with sex and if they’re allowed anywhere near impressionable young minds, then you don’t even want to know what tomorrow’s Webelos will be doing after school in the garage with all those fancy knots.

That message wasn’t lost on Equality Texas, which Tuesday issued a statement decrying Perry’s narrowminded bigotry and — gotcha! — unseemly preoocupation with sex. The group invites gay scouts to attend Perry’s three scheduled Texas booksignings this week.

in case you’re interested, that’s Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Border’s Books in San Antonio; Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. at BookPeople in Austin; and Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 at Borders Books in Dallas. Expect to find Perry set up at a signing table in the farthest possible corner from the Gay & Lesbian Literature section. Because you know, you can catch those cooties just by breathing too deeply in their proximity.

And Perry should know. Rumors about his own possibly closeted orientation have circulated for years, prompting the governor in 2004 to take the extraordinary step of denying them publicly.

So far no one has been cynical enough to suggest that the Perry book’s square-jawed broadside at the gay and gay-friendly communities is perhaps nothing more than a self-serving bulwark against that very rumor, which bulwark might come in handy if those other rumors — of Perry’s ambition for national office — ever turn out to be true.

But finally, lest mockery get the best of us, let’s pause just a moment to credit Gov. Perry for not encouraging his dog to write a book, as other governors have done. We all know what dogs have on their dirty little dog brains, and it’s certainly not loyalty and trust. And we’re pretty sure there’s no merit badge for it, either.

We’ve avidly followed the work of software tester John Washburn of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who programmed his computer to start asking for all emails to and from staffers in Gov. Rick Perry’s office in early November of last year. Washburn’s efforts have yielded some juicy tidbits.

It’s also revealed a troubling loophole in Texas’ open records law.

Here’s a little background: Perry’s office sent Washburn a bill of $568 for staff time and compliance costs for each three-to-four-day batch of emails. Washburn has managed to pay for only one batch so far. He quickly posted them on the Internet.

Washburn said he received an estimated 1,900 documents out of a total of 5-6,000 — meaning that Perry’s office has asked that roughly 4,000 documents/emails be ruled exempt from open records requirements. The AG’s office now has 45 business days to rule.

Problem is, the governor’s office seemingly contacted the AG’s office too late. According to Texas’ open records law, state agencies have 10 business days after they receive a request for documents to ask the AG for a ruling.

Section 552.301(b) reads:

(b) The governmental body must ask for the attorney general’s decision and state the exceptions that apply within a reasonable time but not later than the 10th business day after the date of receiving the written request.

Washburn made his request on Nov. 6, 2007. But the governor’s office didn’t contact the AG’s office to withhold documents until Jan. 14, 2008, according to letters from the governor’s office obtained by the Observer.

Our admittedly simple math says that’s a lot more than the 10-day limit. That would certainly suggest that Perry’s office waited too long to ask the attorney general for an opinion on whether the emails should be deemed exempt to Washburn’s request.

However, Perry ’s office is taking advantage of another, little-used section of open records law that monkeys with the definition of “received.”

Under a rarely used provision, Perry’s office asserts that it can consider the request “received” upon receipt of payment.

Perry’s office received payment for the first batch on Jan. 2.

A spokesperson for Perry explains:

As for the time between Nov. 6 and Jan. 14, our office was waiting for payment from Washburn. Under §552.263(e), we may consider the request “received” upon payment. We sent Washburn an estimate of charges, explaining this procedure on November 20, 2007. Once payment was received, documents were provided within 10 business days. We of course preserved documents during this time.

The Texas Attorney General said Friday that the invoking of §552.263(e) is rare, but is used in certain cases, particularly when the open records request is very large.

A reference to the clause is even on the Texas AG’s web site:

For purposes of the governmental body’s obligations under subchapter E of the Act to make requested public information timely available to the requestor, a request for which a deposit or bond has been required under section 552.263 is considered to have been received by the governmental body on the date the governmental body receives the deposit or bond.

It seems peculiar, even to open records veterans, chiefly because this caveat guts the 10-business-day rule. What governs the governor’s initial response? It appears, at least in cases where fees are assessed, the clock can be stopped indefinitely.

Washburn puts it this way:

In the make-it-up-as-you-go-along world of the Governor, The Governor’s office is under no obligation to provide an itemization of charges in 10 days, 11 days, one month, one year. There is no time limit as long as the Governor thinks the response is “Prompt”.

Perry’s spokesperson responded:

Our internal policy is to provide a requestor with those documents not believed to be confidential within at least 10 days – even though statute simply requires our office to be “prompt.” (Government Code § 552.221)

We expect a more detailed explanation from the attorney general early next week on just how often Section 552.263(e) is invoked and exactly what its ramifications are for open records requests in Texas.

At this moment, though, it appears Perry’s office has opened a severe loophole in one of Texas’ most important open government laws.

Thanks to that wonderful quality of the Internet that facilitates charitable donations and political contributions, Milwaukee Software Tester John Washburn raised the funds to pay most of the bill for a week’s worth of office emails from Governor Rick Perry’s staff (which he had been destroying every seven days up until they were requested).

Washburn says he raised $530 of the $611 price tag for the first batch of emails (the payment was for two of nine requests — for email sent and received from Nov. 2-5 and for headers and subject lines from emails sent and received from Nov. 20-22). Perry insists on charging $568 for staff time and overhead needed to comply with each request (a stance affirmed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott) — but because a response regarding the Nov. 20-22 request was sent late, the charge was less by law (or at least by Perry’s interpretation the law, according to Washburn):

Washburn writes: The reason for the difference in costs is that the Governor’s office failed to respond to the November 23, 2007 within ten business days as required by law. Under the Governor’s own interpretation of the Texas Public Information Act, this failure to respond means the Governor’s office has forfeited the option of presenting a itemization of charges which exceeds $40. I believe this is a misreading of the Texas PIA, but for this request I will stipulate the Governor’s construction of the statute is correct. It saves me $528 after all.

I spoke again with Washburn after he reported having sent the first payment. His attorney in Texas, Houston’s Joe Larsen, has also sent a tenth open records request after learning that Perry has a written policy for dealing with email requests. Washburn notes in his blog that Perry’s office has not responded to this last request:

The Office of the Governor claims it has a written policy which is used to review emails prior to their destruction by the electronic shredders. This tenth PIA request asked for a copy of this written policy. To date there has been no response at all to this tenth PIA request; not even a late one response [sic] as was the case for the November 23, 2007 requests.

The upshot of all this is that — unless Perry goes back to the attorney general or decides to take Washburn to court — we all may be reading Perry’s emails on Washburn’s site as of Jan. 13 (or thereabouts). The correspondence will have been composed before Washburn ever asked for it, so the emails may be worthwhile, though they will certainly be redacted.

As you may have read on Elise Hu’s excellent politics blog, Political Junkie, or in the hard-nosed reporting by Jay Root in the Fort Worth Star Telegram (or here for that matter), Washburn is a software testing engineer that once ran for Congress from Milwaukee as a Libertarian who has a healthy interest in ‘Liberty’ and an avid interest in open records. Washburn came up with the idea after reading Hu’s series, the Purge (which started out as a Texas email records retention scavenger hunt of sorts but has morphed into a Perry vs. Washburn soap opera).

The fact is, Perry’s policy of email deletion had to stop after somebody asked for the records. Washburn’s requests may have stopped many other offices from regular email deletion as officeholders and interested activists watch the Washburn/Perry fight unfold.

Washburn is encountering the abrasive attacks of Perry fans and sometimes-anonymous readers from Texas who slam him for “wasting taxpayers’ money” and being an ego-driven “loser.” He deserves a lot of credit for sticking to his principles on this, I think. Here are a couple of examples of what he has to put up with:

Good citizen activists are hard to come by, misguided losers are a dime a dozen and it is up to us to call them on it. Keep up the vigil against stupidity…

Please send me a copy of “How to be an Obnoxious Citizen.” I’m sure you have a copy or two along with “How to Waste the Countries Time and Taxes” with a forward on “How to Raise taxes”…

Who is donating toward Washburn’s efforts? After a look around the Internet, I found at least one blogger who is proud that he donated $100. You know, there are worse ways to spend your money. If you want to help get more of these emails into the sunshine, Washburn has a link for donations here.

In any case, stay tuned. We may yet get a glimpse of these ‘public’ records.

We reported earlier this month on Milwaukee’s John Washburn’s automatically generated open records requests for the emails sent to and received by Gov. Rick Perry’s office. Yesterday, we noted that Perry has sent Washburn a bill (actually an estimate) for $568.

That covers the first half-a-week’s worth of emails. The emails for a whole month will cost Washburn a whopping $2,300 or more. We also promised to relay what exactly Perry’s spokesman says will cost so much.

Robert Black told me, as the “itemization” of the estimate details, staff time is indeed the chief cost element. The office’s letter to Washburn states that $472.50 of the cost will be incurred by 31.5 hours of staff time (at $15 per hour) required to comply with the request. Another $94.50 is listed as “Overhead at 20% of staff charge.” Then there’s the $1 cost for the CD.

Black says every staff member will have to spend time printing, preparing the emails for clearance through office counsel, and getting the emails ready eventually for copying to CD.

“Every staff member has to stop what they’re doing, and save it, and print those off, and send it over to general counsel,” Black said. “We haven’t gotten to the copying part yet.”

Black said it was the governor’s intent to abide by Texas’ open government laws, and despite my goading, he could not be made to even grumble about the nature of the request, or the fact that it was being made by someone out of state who was apparently doing it simply because he was offended by the fact that the emails were being regularly deleted.

“It’s the law,” Black said. “We are all for open government and government in the sunshine.”

Black added that the governor’s records retention policy has been approved by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and that the former policy of deleting emails after seven days was not resulting in the destruction of pertinent records.

“It’s important for people to understand that email is not a filing system,” Black said. “Information that is required to be saved is being saved. It’s like saying we’re not saving every post-it note.”

He said, for now, the governor’s office will be working on getting Washburn the information he has requested.

“It certainly takes up a lot of their time,” Black said. “But it’s the law, and we’re going to comply with the law.”

Black said Washburn has a few options, including paying the $568 and awaiting the next bill and the emails on CD. Or he can narrow his request, which has been suggested several times by the governor’s office, and he has so far refused. Or Washburn can complain about the cost estimate to the Texas attorney general.

An email from Washburn early Tuesday indicated he has sent a complaint to AG Greg Abbott’s office about the staff time and overhead charges. He also sent Perry a check for $2.

A previous post described the open records battle being waged by Milwaukee software professional John Washburn versus the governor of this great state, Rick Perry.

Mr. Washburn’s requests would not have been possible without Elise Hu’s blog series, The Purge — which set about investigating the public records retention policies of Texas government agencies. She and Jay Root with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram deserve credit in terms of finding and following this story.

Washburn has now been sent a bill by Perry that estimates the cost of “locating, compiling, and reproducing” four days’ worth of emails to be $568. There’s a warning about redaction costs as well. And, once again, Perry’s office suggested narrowing Mr. Washburn’s public records request.

At that rate, Washburn could be looking at an open records request fee total of more than $2,000 per month — and Perry’s office also noted that a failure to receive the funds would result in automatic withdrawals of outstanding requests, along with a note that no disclosure of the records requested would begin until the governor’s office receives a “deposit.”

What was Washburn’s reaction?

“I laughed at it, to be honest with you,” he says. “It is exorbitantly high.”

Washburn says he knows exactly what he asked for, and he knows that it can be easily obtained.

“How hard can email extraction be from a server?” he asked. (I must admit thinking about that for a minute. Perry’s office is claiming 31.5 hours of staff time at $15 per hour, which results in the bulk of the $568 figure. What will those staff members be doing during those hours? We called Perry’s office and they said they’d get back to us with more details.)

Washburn asked for the emails in their original, digital format. There is a question as to how such documents can be redacted, and for that matter, what is the logic of the redactors?

Washburn, who has a history of open records activity in Wisconsin, Florida, and now Texas, says he has never before encountered a charge for staff time, although it is standard in the Lone Star state.

He did tell me that he was surprised by what he called Perry’s ‘gambit.’ He said he thought Perry would take the ‘drag-it-out’ approach to stifling records requests.

“Before, I thought it was just going to be stretched out,” Washburn says. “Now, they’re hoping that I won’t come up with the money.”

So far, Washburn has requested the governor’s emails from preceding days on Nov. 6, 9, 13, 20, and 23. The objective, Washburn said, was to stop a pro-forma email destruction policy that Perry’s office had in place — and which it said it inherited from Governor George W. Bush.

Washburn does have a plan to thwart Perry’s latest move, but it will take another post to assess its merits.

While the border fence was hogging headlines, another item slipped over the wire. It turns out Gov. Rick Perry “has found $3 million dollars in federal grants to install about 200 mobile cameras along the Texas-Mexico border.” We are still tracking down where the money comes from and if it can be spent in more useful ways.

Perry has been vocal against an actual fence… when he was in Mexico. “It absolutely would not work,” he said on a recent trade trip to our neighbor to the south. One has to wonder if the governor is saying the same thing to the GOP base in New Hampshire and Iowa as he stumps for Rudy Giuliani. Many of Texas’ politicians have a tendency to talk out of both sides of their mouth on this issue.

Perry’s plan would allegedly allow Internet users to monitor the border in a sort of armchair vigilante system that made even the Texas Legislature balk. Texas lawmakers wisely refused Perry’s request for $5 million for the program. A test run in January cost $200,000 and “led authorities to ten undocumented immigrants, one drug deal, and one human smuggling route.” Full implementation is set to begin in early 2008. One wonders if the results of the new system will be available before the 2008 election.