In one of the most Conservative states in the country where it is rather difficult for women to gain equal presence in all fields, Barbara Ann Radnofsky has been breaking new ground in every way possible.

Radnofsky is well on her way to becoming the first woman Attorney General of Texas. Her 31-year legal career is nothing but successful—for more than half her time spent practicing law, Radnofsky has been named one of the “Best Lawyers in America”.

In addition, she achieved one of the most important “firsts” while working for the distinguished law firm Vinson & Elkins: She was the first woman to have children as an associate and make partner in the law firm. Furthermore, her strong record in representing the minority population will ensure that cases relating to discrimination based on race and gender will not be overlooked.

Radnofsky understands the way the economy disproportionately impacts women and minorities, and in one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, there has never been a greater need for an Attorney General who is dedicated to helping these populations. Even today, women make approximately 78 percent of what men are paid, with this inequality significantly wider with women of color. In today’s economic climate, this kind of disparity is devastating.

The Texas primary for Radnofsky is exactly one week away. In a time when women are extremely underrepresented in state legislatures and face hurdles across the board, we need women like Radnofsky in positions of power.

When citizens ask for copies of government records the Public Information Act (PIA) presumes the people’s right to know.

The Act says, Section. 552.001 regarding "Policy; Construction... The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created..."

The Attorney General just lost a major appeal on this issue, but he can still protect the public from abuse. In City of Dallas v. Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, 53 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. __ (Feb. 19, 2010), rev’g 279 S.W.3d 806 (Tex. App.--Amarillo 2007). the Texas Supreme Court held that "good faith" requests for clarification on Public Information Act (PIA) requests reset the time clock for requesting original information.

The enormous proof problems of "good faith," and the thwarting of the law's disclosure presumption and intent are summarized in the dissent.

"The Court’s approach resets the clock for all information in the original request each time a clarification is sought, and it is not justified where that clarification only narrows the scope of the original request for the benefit of the governmental entity… Surely, where new information is sought in a clarification, the entity should receive ten business days to seek an attorney general opinion. But it is inconsistent with the language and purpose of the PIA to extend the statutory deadline ten business days beyond the time already allotted for public information requested initially. The Court’s holding ignores the date of receipt of the original request and, contrary to the statutory mandate, inserts an unnecessary delay into the process. This allows both inadvertent delay of disclosures about government affairs and easy manipulation of the deadline through clarification requests."

In light of his loss and the highlighting of the problem, the Attorney General should take pro-active measures to prevent the government from using this decision to delay, parry or completely frustrate the public from access to public records. To prevent the predicted abuses, complaints of over broad requests, and endless requests for "clarification", the AG should implement education programs and tracking of requests and responses by agencies for clarification. This will discourage unneeded or unknowledgeable requests for clarification and delaying tactics.

Does the abuse potential exist? Yes. The Corpus Christi Caller Times, on Dec 12 2009, reported on governmental units and agencies referring information requests to the Attorney General, instead of complying. For agencies, between 2003 and 2009, the paper found, referrals to the Attorney General increased 40.5 percent, while total number of requests those agencies received dropped by 84.5 percent. The paper reported complaint of waste of tax payers’ dollars when governing bodies send requests to withhold information already declared open.

The Attorney General can alleviate misuse of the review process by education and tracking issuance of similar rulings and developing patterns. Now is the time to ensure such programs are implemented statewide.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky is the 2010 Democratic candidate for Texas Attorney General.

Barbara Ann was interviewed for Texas Public Radio about why she is running for Texas Attorney General.

The interview with Barbara Ann is Show #489 and she is featured in Segment 2.

Please find Barbara Ann's interview on the Texas Public Radio website.

AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline)-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is wrong to consider possible legal action over a deal that got Senate Democrats their final 60th vote on a federal health care overhaul, his Democratic challenger says.

In a statement, Democratic attorney general candidate Barbara Ann Radnofsky accused Abbott, a Republican, of political grandstanding in agreeing to probe a deal that grants Nebraska a permanent exemption from paying the higher Medicaid expenses that all other states in the nation would be required to pay, under the Senate-approved plan.

"Even if the bill emerged as a law, the Texas attorney general has no power to intervene. He has no standing, legally, to challenge the law or political horse-trading in the U.S. Senate. It is bad lawyering, grandstanding with no legal basis," Radnofsky said in a statement.

She added: "If the Texas attorney general had standing, he should have fought against unfair distribution of our federal highway tax dollars. Texas has been and remains a net donor to the other states."

The final vote last month to approve the Senate health care bill came from U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, who was able to spare his state higher Medicaid costs in the legislation drafted by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in exchange for his vote.

The Senate legislation requires that the states provide Medicaid coverage to anyone making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- a move that will likely expand the number of Medicaid-eligible persons throughout the country and increase the financial burden on the states since they bankroll part of the program.

In a statement, Abbott said he was outraged by the deal, which has become known as the Nebraska Compromise.

"Because it disadvantages Texas taxpayers, the Texas Attorney General's Office will explore all available avenues to challenge and overturn this legally problematic provision," Abbott said. "Our democratic system of government depends upon transparency and openness--this backroom deal goes too far and must be challenged because Texas deserves better."

Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice, was first elected the state's chief legal officer in 2002 and was reelected handily in 2006. Radnofsky unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006, losing to Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline)-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Wednesday challenged provision of the health care overhaul bill recently approved by the U.S. Senate.

The Republican sent letters to U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, outlining his legal objections. He specifically questioned a provision that exempts Nebraska from having to pay Medicaid expense increases.

The language was inserted into the Senate bill to gain the support of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who offered the 60th and final vote needed to pass the plan aimed at expanding access to health care and changing the way U.S. health insurance companies do business.

The legislation requires that states provide Medicaid coverage to anyone making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- a move that will expand the number of Medicaid-eligible persons throughout the country and increase the financial burden on the states since they bankroll part of the program.

"If enacted, the Senate version of H.R. 3590 would impose billions of dollars of new Medicaid obligations on 49 states while singling out only one state for special treatment," wrote Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice.

In his letter, Abbott also challenged the constitutionality of a provision in the bill that creates individual mandates for health insurance.

"This unprecedented congressional mandate threatens individual liberty and raises serious constitutional questions," Abbott wrote.

Abbott is seeking reelection this year. His Democratic challenger, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, has accused him of political grandstanding for raising objections to the federal health care bill, as have other Republican state attorneys general.

"Even if the bill emerged as a law, the Texas attorney general has no power to intervene. He has no standing, legally, to challenge the law or political horse-trading in the U.S. Senate. It is bad lawyering, grandstanding with no legal basis," Radnofsky said in a statement.

She added: "If the Texas attorney general had standing, he should have fought against unfair distribution of our federal highway tax dollars. Texas has been and remains a net donor to the other states."

On December 30, the Texas Attorney General challenged the Senate version of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, joining a letter from 13 state Attorneys General to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. The Texas Attorney General issued his press release and joined this legally empty act the week after he filed for re-election.

There is no law to challenge.

The Texas Attorney General would have no standing, legally, to challenge political horse-trading in the U.S. Senate, even if a statute passed. The threat of court action is grandstanding by a Texas Attorney General who has no standing to pursue the vague discrimination and fairness claims he references in his press release.

He cites no law, understandably. A state and its agencies are not "persons" entitled to the right of constitutional due process. See, e.g., State v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 323-24 (1966) ("The word 'person' in the context of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment cannot, by any reasonable mode of interpretation, be expanded to encompass the States of the Union, and to our knowledge this has never been done by any court"); State v. Riley, 84 F.3d 125, 130 n.2 (3d Cir.), cert. dism'd, 117 S. Ct. 282 (1996) (to same effect).

The letter threatens Congress with a claim that it violated its spending powers. Presumably, these Attorneys General think that they can find an activist court. Ironically, the AGs emphasize "the legitimate federal interests in the bill" while challenging a horse-trade which may or may not make it in to a finished statute. The greater irony: the 13 Attorneys General cite two United States Supreme Court cases which are examples of judicial restraint, each emphasizing and validating the Constitutional power of Congress to spend money in aid of the general welfare with a "wide range of discretion permitted to the Congress." Helvering v. Davis, 301 US 619 (1937). Helvering is in no way the "warning" the AGs' letter claims. Should a State Attorney General threatening court action overrule the actions of our elected Congresspersons? The great Justice Cardozo held in Helvering: "Whether wisdom or unwisdom in the scheme of benefits set forth in Title II (Old Age Benefits), it is not for us to say. The answer to such inquiries must come from Congress, not courts."

The Attorneys General then rely on So. Dakota v. Dole, 483 US 203 (1987), a case permitting Congress to indirectly act under its spending power to encourage minimum drinking laws. This effort was held constitutional even if Congress may not have been permitted to regulate drinking ages directly. Citing the Helvering opinion, the Supreme Court again explained its significance, with no reference to any "warning" as claimed by the Attorneys General but rather the deference the acts of Congress are given under our Constitution: "in considering whether a particular expenditure is intended to serve public purposes, courts should defer substantially to the judgment of Congress."

The December 30 letter represents the Texas Attorney General's attempt to score political points with his base: the secessionists in Texas are thought to cover 20 percent of its citizenry. His legal loser of a challenge evidences his desire for a U.S. Senate seat and his history of fighting for himself, not for the people he was elected to serve.

Houston lawyer Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who this week filed her candidacy as a Democrat for attorney general, warmed up an Austin group Tuesday by revealing that her late father taught her how to sew.

"If this (campaign) doesn't work out, I could make a hell of a tailor," Radnofsky said.

Radnofsky later elaborated, saying that Matthew Radnofsky, who was a navigator on a World War II bomber shot down over Germany, worked for NASA and developed aviator suits and space-capsule collars to keep astronauts afloat once they landed in water back on Earth. She said he also developed a life raft that doubled as a suit.

Impressed, Under the Dome sought Radnofsky's thoughts on the design of a strapless bicycle helmet.

Radnofsky sounded skeptical, though she advised: "My dear, strapless bras have been around a long time."

Straightforward. Stuffed shirt. Serious. Wonkish. Back in 2006, when she ran for the U.S. Senate, you could tell Barbara Ann Radnofsky was a lawyer. And a real serious lawyer. After two decades in the galleys at monster Houston corporate law firm Vinson & Elkins, she had the credentials -- and by golly, the lash marks to prove it.

But this cycle, as Radnofsky seeks the Democratic nomination for state attorney general, she's trying to lighten up. Give her credit. This video on her campaign web site uses self deprecating humor. She's still oh so serious about things. But she can laugh -- and smile. Wow.

Radnofsky ate GOP incumbent Kay Bailey Hutchison's dust in the 2006 U.S. Senate race. She lost, 62 percent to 36 percent.

Today, though, Radnofsky said she's not a fanciful newcomer. "I'm not going to make 650 campaign trips," she said. "I'm staying on the phone five to six hours a day, raising money. That will be different. I've learned a whole lot."

While Radnofsky wouldn't say how much she hopes to raise and spend, she spent $1.4 million last time. She said she's already raised $550,000 and has "a whole lot of media planned" as she goes after GOP Attorney General Greg Abbott.

AUSTIN – Texas Democrats, outgunned for 15 years, today began presenting their slate of statewide candidates amid renewed hopes – though they still face daunting odds.

Many long-suffering Democrats are pleased that Houston Mayor Bill White, who is expected to announce his bid for governor Friday, would put someone well-known and well-financed at the top of their ticket next year.

But while that would solve one of their problems from four years ago, the party hasn't won a statewide race since 1994 and is still struggling to offer other statewide candidates who could gin up some excitement – or at least help in certain areas or portions of the electorate.

As candidate filing for the March party primaries began, Houston lawyer Barbara Ann Radnofsky formally unveiled a bid to unseat two-term Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott. Also, Houston energy lawyer Jeff Weems filed for the Texas Railroad Commission seat now held by Republican Victor Carrillo.

Radnofsky, who lost in a landslide to Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2006 U.S. Senate race, quickly went on the offensive against Abbott, a highly popular figure in the state's reddest precincts.
She accused Abbott of ignoring evidence of sexual abuse of youthful offenders in Texas Youth Commission lockups and of using the power of his office to go after poor black and Hispanic voters in supposed prosecutions of vote fraud.

"The current attorney general turned his back" on chilling evidence of TYC cover-ups brought to him by a Texas Ranger in February 2006, Radnofsky said.

"That same month, the Texas attorney general went into East Texas unsolicited … and then maliciously … chose to target minority and elderly women who were in turn assisting the homebound [to] cast their mail-in ballots," she said. She called Abbott's move "abuse of discretion and a waste of a whole lot of money."

Abbott's campaign replied that Radnofsky's real beef is with a Democratic district attorney in West Texas who didn't prosecute the Ranger's findings of misconduct by TYC employees.

Abbott strategist Jason Johnson said it was Abbott who convened a grand jury and is prosecuting the cases. The GOP incumbent works hard to protect youth, he said.

"To date, the attorney general has arrested over 1,500 sexual predators," Johnson said. "So if the best that she can do is make false attacks that are not based in reality, it's a pretty good indication of why the Democrats are concerned that they don't have their A team on the field."

Johnson also defended Abbott's prosecution of 26 Democrats. In most cases, the voters were eligible and votes weren't changed, but the people who collected the ballots for mailing were prosecuted for failing to properly sign the mailing envelope.

"It's a red herring," Johnson said of Radnofsky's charge that Abbott acted for partisan political reasons. "The reality is the attorney general has and will continue to vigorously enforce the election law," Johnson said.

Weems, the Railroad Commission hopeful, said the three incumbents spend too much time raising money for their next campaign and "enforce rules unevenly" in regulating oil and gas producers.
He said the commission should closely monitor drilling by natural gas companies working North Texas' Barnett shale fields.

"You have to make sure that your drilling activities don't pollute the freshwater zones because Fort Worth and surrounding areas rely very heavily on the freshwater aquifers," Weems said.

The candidate filing period ends Jan. 4.

AUSTIN -- Texans: Are you really married?

Maybe not.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

The amendment, approved by the Texas Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by Texas voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the trouble-making phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships.

But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.

She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.

"You do not have to have a fancy law degree to read this and understand what it plainly says," said Radnofsky, who will be at Texas Christian University on Wednesday as part of a five-city tour to kick off her campaign.

'Entirely constitutional'

Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland said that the attorney general stands behind the 4-year-old amendment.

"The Texas Constitution and the marriage statute are entirely constitutional," Strickland said without commenting further on Radnofsky's statements. "We will continue to defend both in court."

A conservative leader whose organization helped draft the amendment dismissed Radnofsky's position, saying it was similar to scare tactics opponents used unsuccessfully against the proposal in 2005.

"It's a silly argument," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano. Any lawsuit based on the wording of Subsection B, he said, would have "about one chance in a trillion" of being successful.

Shackelford said the clause was designed to be broad enough to prevent the creation of domestic partnerships, civil unions or other arrangements that would give same-sex couples many of the benefits of marriage.

Radnofsky acknowledged that the clause is not likely to result in an overnight dismantling of marriages in Texas. But she said the wording opens the door to legal claims involving spousal rights, insurance claims, inheritance and a host of other marriage-related issues.

"This breeds unneeded arguments, lawsuits and expense which could have been avoided by good lawyering," Radnofsky said. "Yes, I believe the clear language of B bans all marriages, and this is indeed a huge mistake."

In October, Dallas District Judge Tena Callahan ruled that the same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional because it stands in the way of gay divorce. Abbott is appealing the ruling, which came in a divorce petition involving two men who were married in Massachusetts in 2006.

Massive error?

Radnofsky, the Democratic nominee in the Senate race against Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2006, said she voted against the amendment but didn't realize the legal implications until she began poring over the Texas Constitution to prepare for the attorney general's race. She said she holds Abbott and his office responsible for not catching what she calls an "error of massive proportions."

"Whoever vetted the language in B must have been asleep at the wheel," she said.

Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice who was elected attorney general in 2002, has not indicated whether he will seek re-election and is known to be interested in running for lieutenant governor.

Ted Cruz, who served as solicitor general under Abbott, is running for attorney general in the Republican primary.

Radnofsky, who has not yet drawn a Democratic opponent, is scheduled to appear at the Tarrant County Young Democrats Gubernatorial Forum at 6:30 Wednesday night at TCU.

DAVE MONTGOMERY, 512-476-4294