When Texas’s biennial legislative session began earlier this year, many advocates for tougher ethics laws sounded an upbeat tone. Since a large crop of new lawmakers was coming aboard, some said at the time, 2013 was the year for bold reform.

But on Sunday, the legislature ended those hopes. An ethics bill was indeed passed, but it failed to include most provisions that watchdogs had pushed for. During a conference committee between the Senate and the House, lawmakers stripped several amendments that would have required online financial disclosure, exposed “dark money” in state campaigns and required lawmakers to disclose financial interests in businesses that receive state contracts.

Among the state’s biggest cities, several sprawling Dallas-area suburbs tallied the highest rate of requests to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott last year to keep government information secret, according to a recent examination by the Center for Public Integrity.

The probe examined the number of attempts by the 20 largest Texas cities to block public requests for information in 2011, then looked at how those numbers stacked up for each city, according to the rate of requests per 100,000 population. The “winners” were not the state’s biggest cities. McKinney had the highest rate of requests asking that Abbott allow the withholding of documents sought by citizens under the Texas Public Information Act. Next up were McAllen, Garland, Mesquite, Plano and Arlington. Fort Worth was ranked eighth and Dallas ninth, giving the Fort Worth/Dallas metroplex seven of the top 10 in the rankings.

State Integrity News for Texas from SII partner KERA:

Texas is one of just six states that select all of its judges in partisan elections.  Critics say that creates conflicts of interest and politics becomes more important than qualifications.  In the third part of “Texas Judges: Out of Order,” we look at the pros and cons of the way Texas selects judges and some alternatives.

Listen to the story from KERA - Dallas.

State Integrity news for Texas from SII partner KERA:

Complaints about Texas judges are usually handled in secret and rarely lead to punishment. That’s what state lawmakers heard when they met to review the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, the agency that disciplines judges.

Citizens testified that the agency’s secrecy makes it impossible to know whether Texas’s 3,910 judges are being held accountable. Austin attorney Bennie Ray told lawmakers that even when judges are punished it’s a slap on the wrist in a closed meeting.

“There’s no way for the public or a voter to easily track a judges complain history. Judges could have a number of informal complaints and nobody would know about them,” Ray testified.

Read and hear more from KERA - Dallas.

State Integrity news for Texas from SII partner KERA:

The State Integrity Investigation on government corruption gives Texas an average grade of C for holding judges accountable. But some citizens and lawmakers who’ve tested the system say that grade is far too high.

As part of a series of reports -- "Texas Judges: “Out of Order” -- KERA found that the public can access little information about misconduct complaints against judges. The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, the agency that investigates and disciplines judges, is not subject to the Texas Public Information Act.

And even when citizens file complaints about a judge misbehaving in the courtroom, the complaints sometimes cannot be investigated because no record exists of the proceedings in many Texas courts.

Read and hear more from KERA - Dallas.

State Integrity news for Texas from SII partner KUT:

As always, money played a role in deciding the winners in this year's Texas primaries -- money that flows through a system that get low marks from the State Integrity Investigation.

It gave Texas a "D minus" overall on political financing, with the lowest ranking in the part of the study that looked at whether or not state laws are effective at regulating political financing.

The short answer there is “no,” because Texas has no limits on how much money you can give to a candidate.

Read and hear more from KUT - Austin.

State integrity news for Texas, from the Austin American-Statesman:

We previously have called on Texas lawmakers to stop misusing fees collected for specific programs in order to balance the state budget.

So we were encouraged this week to hear House Speaker Joe Straus urge his colleagues to end the practice. It was a bit of good news for those who want greater transparency and truth in the state's budget.

Read the rest of the story a the Austin American-Statesman.

State integrity news for Texas, from the Austin American-Statesman:

State officials are required to fill out reports disclosing their personal finances. The Texas Ethics Commission keeps these statements on file in Austin for you to see as long as you're willing to file a request to have them delivered by email or fax, or you're in Austin to pick up a copy.

You'd think that in this digital world this public information would be available online, but you'd think incorrectly.

Read the rest of the story at the Austin American-Statesman.

State integrity news for Texas, from the Austin American-Statesman:

A former state representative from Williamson County has been spending leftover campaign cash on high-priced airline tickets, boutique hotel rooms, high-dollar restaurant tabs and Apple Computer products — possibly in violation of state ethics laws.

Mike Krusee, who became a registered lobbyist in 2009, left the Texas House after the 2007 legislative session with more than $300,000 in unspent contributions in his campaign bank account. He has spent almost $200,000 of the money, according to filings with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Read the rest of the story at the Austin American-Statesman.

State integrity news for Texas, from the San Antonio Express-News:

Even when he's not running for president, Gov. Rick Perry is an avid traveler. As Express-News Austin Bureau Chief Peggy Fikac reported, Perry's security bill for official and personal travel outside Texas totaled more than $2 million from November 2010 through February 2012.

That's not pocket change. As with other kinds of state expenditures, the public is entitled to know whether the bills for the Perry security detail are prudent.

Read the rest of the story at the San Antonio Express-News.