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This text is co-published with The Texas Newsroom and The Texas Tribune as a part of an initiative to report on how energy is wielded in Texas.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t need to reveal months of communications with Elon Musk or representatives from the tech mogul’s corporations, arguing partially that they’re of a non-public nature, not of public curiosity and probably embarrassing.
Musk had an eventful legislative session in Texas this yr. Along with his lobbyists efficiently advocating for a number of new legal guidelines, Abbott cited the Tesla and SpaceX CEO because the inspiration for the state creating its personal effectivity workplace and has praised him for shifting the headquarters for a lot of of his companies to the state lately.
As a part of an effort to track the billionaire’s influence within the state Capitol, The Texas Newsroom in April requested Abbott and his workers’s emails since final fall with Musk and different individuals who have an e-mail tackle related to a few of his corporations.
Initially, the governor’s workplace mentioned it could take greater than 13 hours to evaluation the data. It supplied a value estimate of $244.64 for the work and required full cost up entrance. The Texas Newsroom agreed and reduce a examine.
After the examine was cashed, the governor’s workplace instructed The Texas Newsroom it believed all the data had been confidential and requested Texas Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton, whose workplace referees disputes over public data, to permit the paperwork to be saved non-public.
Matthew Taylor, Abbott’s public data coordinator, gave several reasons the data shouldn’t be launched. He argued they embody non-public exchanges with attorneys, particulars about policy-making choices and knowledge that might reveal how the state entices corporations to take a position right here. Releasing them to the general public, he wrote, “would have a chilling impact on the frank and open dialogue needed for the decision-making course of.”
Taylor additionally argued that the communications are confidential underneath an exception to public data legal guidelines generally known as “common-law privateness” as a result of they encompass “data that’s intimate and embarrassing and never of legit concern to the general public, together with monetary choices that don’t relate to transactions between a person and a governmental physique.”
He didn’t present additional particulars concerning the actual content material of the data.
The language Abbott’s workplace used seems to be pretty boilerplate. Paxton’s workplace, in an evidence of the common-law privacy exception on its web site, mentions that “private monetary data” that doesn’t take care of authorities transactions “is usually extremely intimate or embarrassing and should be withheld.”
However Invoice Aleshire, a Texas-based legal professional specializing in public data legislation, was appalled that the governor is claiming that months of emails between his workplace and one of many world’s richest individuals are all non-public.
“Proper now, it seems they’ve charged you $244 for data they haven’t any intention of supplying you with,” Aleshire mentioned. “That’s surprising.”
Aleshire mentioned it’s commonplace for presidency businesses to faucet the common-law privateness exception in an try to withhold data from the general public. However he’s used to it being cited in circumstances that contain kids, medical information or different extremely private data — not for emails between an elected official and a businessman.
“You’re boxing at nighttime,” Aleshire mentioned. “You possibly can’t even see what the goal is or what’s behind their declare.”
Aleshire added that as a result of a latest Texas Supreme Court ruling, there may be successfully no option to implement public data legal guidelines towards Abbott and different high state officers. He known as the choice an “ace card” for these politicians.
The case handled requests to launch Abbott and Paxton’s communications within the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde. The excessive courtroom dominated that it’s the solely physique that may evaluation whether or not these officers are in compliance with public data legal guidelines.
Kevin Bagnall, a lawyer representing Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX, also wrote a letter to Paxton’s workplace arguing the emails needs to be saved secret. He cited one major motive: They include “business data whose disclosure would trigger SpaceX substantial aggressive hurt.”
A lot of the remainder of Bagnall’s letter, which additional defined SpaceX’s argument, was redacted.
Musk and representatives for his corporations didn’t reply to requests for remark for this story.
Abbott’s spokesperson didn’t reply to particular questions concerning the data, together with whether or not The Texas Newsroom can be refunded if Paxton withholds them.
In a press release, he mentioned, “The Workplace of the Governor rigorously complies with the Texas Public Data Act and can launch any responsive data that’s decided to not be confidential or excepted from disclosure.”
The workplace of the legal professional basic has 45 enterprise days to find out whether or not to launch Abbott’s data.
Lauren McGaughy is a journalist with The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration amongst NPR and the general public radio stations in Texas. She is predicated at KUT in Austin. Attain her at [email protected]. Join KUT newsletters.
