John Washburn Takes on the State of Texas

John Washburn, who has been a pit bull in attacking election problems in Wisconsin, has taken on the state of Texas.  Here’s the short version:

The Executive Branch in Texas, led by Aggie Governor Rick Perry, has been instructed to delete all emails on a regular basis.  This grated at Washburn, who rightly considers these to be public records worthy of being preserved.  Texas state law says that once someone requests a record, it must be preserved.  So Washburn...

The Milwaukee-based software consultant programmed his computer to automatically spit out two requests a week for all government e-mail generated by Perry staffers. He hasn’t gotten a single e-mail yet, but Washburn has already achieved a victory of sorts. Under state law, records aren’t supposed to be destroyed once somebody has asked for them.

In other words, Washburn has singlehandedly brought the electronic shredders to a grinding halt.

One guy can make a difference. 

But now he needs some help.  The State of Texas has some of the emails for him but want to charge him $568 for the records.  He’s blegging for the money to get them.  Please consider dropping him a few bucks.  Between all of us, $568 should come pretty quick and help one man teach the State of Texas what open government is all about.