Honoring a Defender of Democracy

A week ago I had the privilege of attending the League of Women Voters of Texas "Defending Democracy Dinner" honoring Randall Buck Wood for his career defending democracy in Texas. Mr. Wood served as Director of the Elections Division of the Texas Office of the Secretary of State, then he became the Executive Director of Common Cause Texas, a public interest advocacy organization, and now in addition to his private law practice serves as the General Counsel to the Equity Center, an association of over 500 below-average-wealth school districts committed to improving public school funding in Texas.

Common Cause, a citizens’ group focused on government transparency and ethics, hired Wood in September 1972 as Executive Director. Early the previous year, at the beginning of the bi-annual legislative session the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges alleging a far-reaching stock manipulation scheme organized by top business and political leaders which would eventually become known as the Sharpstown scandal. The speaker of the House, one of his top aides and another house member were convicted. The ensuing investigation uncovered other shenanigans involving lobbyists handing out checks on the House floor in exchange for legislative action as well as legislators enriching themselves on the taxpayers dime sometimes through outright theft of public property.

With Texas in the throes of the Sharpstown scandal and having elected a large number of new legislators claiming a reform agenda Wood struck while the iron was hot and pushed his programs through against the opposition of practically every other lobbyist and many of the legislators themselves. Wood was provided several model bills by the national organization which he then modified to meet the needs of Texas and wrote some bills of his own, they all focused on ethics of legislators and state officials; lobby registration and reporting of expenditures; campaign finance reporting; expansion of the open meetings law; thus enlarging the public’s access to government information.

Wood’s work for Common Cause led to an improved open meetings law; tightened controls over campaign contributions and expenditures; easier public access to government records; and, most importantly for the lobby, tightened control over lobbyists and their spending.

After the state lost the landmark school finance case, Edgewood ISD v. Kirby, which alleged discrimination against students in poor school districts the Governor contacted Buck Wood and instructed him to write a public school finance bill that was constitutional in under a week. The school district and several parents had charged that the state's methods of funding public schools violated at least four principles of the state constitution, which obligated the state legislature to provide an efficient and free public school system. His team worked up a bill and saw it through the legislative process successfully.

Since then Mr. Wood, as the General Counsel to the Equity Center, has been involved in most of the numerous school finance cases over the last 30 or so years. All the cases have charged that the state continues to fail in its constitutional duty to provide an efficient and free public school system and the courts have agreed over and over.

Many area districts including San Antonio ISD which has announced staff reductions and Schertz/Cibolo/Universal City ISD which will ask to raise property taxes later this year are or soon will be in difficult straits under the current financing formula. It is unconscionable that after more than 30 years the state legislature still doesn’t have the guts to do what needs doing and develop an equitable tax and funding system. Mr. Wood says he’ll keep working to improve public education through the courts if he has to.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 4, 2018