The State of Disclosure in Texas
Texas earned a B and ranked 11th in 2008,
up from a B- and 17th in 2007. Texas made
strong gains in the Online Contextual and
Technical Usability category in 2008, improving
from an F and ranking 39th in 2007 to a C
and 24th this year.
Texas earned a B- and ranked 21st in the
Campaign Disclosure Law category in 2008.
Candidates must report detailed information
about donors giving more than $50, including
occupation and employer data for those who
contribute $500 or more. Expenditures over
$50 must be itemized, but reports do not
include information about subvendor payments
or accrued expenditures. Both last-minute
contributions and last-minute independent
expenditures are disclosed before Election
Day. The law contains penalties for violations
of campaign disclosure requirements, and
these provisions were strengthened in 2007.
Texas maintained a top ranking in the electronic
filing category in 2008, again earning an
A+. Both statewide and legislative candidates
who reach a threshold of $20,000 are required
to file disclosure reports electronically
and can do so through either the software
or web-based programs offered by the Texas
Ethics Commission.
Texas
has earned As in four of the five assessments
in the Disclosure Content Accessibility
category and ranked in the top five again
in 2008. Electronically-filed disclosure
reports are available on the Texas Ethics
Commission’s web site within two days
of receipt. Summary information from paper-filed
reports is accessible online, though itemized
transactions are not. Electronic reports
can be browsed in a PDF format or searched
through the site’s database of contributions
and expenditures. The database allows site
visitors to search across many fields, and
search results can be easily sorted online
or downloaded for offline analysis. The database
could be improved with a field for searching
expenditures by purpose since this information
is included in the search results. The Texas
Ethics Commission does an excellent job of
making paper copies of reports available
to the public, and charges just $.10 per
page.
A
much stronger usability test performance
pushed Texas up from an F in 2007 to a C
in the web site usability category in 2008.
In the past, navigating from the state homepage
to the disclosure site was extremely difficult
(only one usability tester was able to do
so in 2007). In 2008, all of the testers
located the disclosure site and completed
their tasks more quickly than testers did
in 2007. Still, half of the testers reported
confusion with the site’s terminology
and rated their experience on the site unfavorably.
The site provides summaries of fundraising
and spending for each reporting period going
back to 1996, with all committees presented
in a single, alphabetical listing; this feature
could be more useful by organizing the list
by PACs, candidates, and office sought.
→ Quick
Fix: Organize the “Campaign
Finance Report Totals” summary
pages by office sought rather than
alphabetically to allow the public
to quickly and easily compare funds
between competing candidates.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Simple
and advanced search options, and contribution
and expenditure search fields, are
all integrated into one database
search screen. View image
Disclosure Agency: Texas Ethics Commission
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.ethics.state.tx.us |