Court rules Perry's travel details can stay secret State high court points to potential safety threat.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during the 28th annual National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference, June 23, 2011, in San Antonio. Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during the 28th annual National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference, June 23, 2011, in San Antonio. Photo: Express-News Photo: Express-News Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Court rules Perry's travel details can stay secret 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that details of Gov. Rick Perry's travels can remain secret, at least for now, overturning two lower court rulings that travel vouchers filed by state troopers should be made public.

“The public's right to ‘complete information' must yield when disclosure of that information would substantially threaten physical harm,” Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision sent the case back to district court in Travis County, where a judge ruled in 2008 that the detailed vouchers didn't pose a security risk and should be made public. An appellate court agreed.

But the high court ordered the trial court to give more weight to the Department of Public Safety's concerns about the safety threat and concluded that the common-law right to be free from physical harm poses an exception to the state's public records law.

“DPS is likely correct in one sense: disclosure of some of the information in the vouchers may create a substantial threat of physical harm because it reveals specific details about the number of officers assigned to protect the governor, their general location in relation to him, and their dates of travel,” Jefferson wrote. “We cannot agree that information from prior trips could not be used to inflict future harm.”

The San Antonio Express-News, the Houston Chronicle and the Austin American-Statesman sued in 2007 to obtain the detailed travel vouchers for the security detail.

The DPS, which provides security for Perry, had argued that public scrutiny of the expenses would jeopardize the governor's safety and therefore should be exempt from disclosure under public records law. It agreed to provide the lump sum expenses for the trips.

The newspapers argued the public had a right to know how its money was being spent.

The justices did find the threat to the governor's safety may not be enough to justify withholding all but the amount spent to protect the governor on his trips abroad.

“The public has a legitimate interest in how public money is spent on official state business,” Jefferson wrote.

The court ruled 7-0 on the matter, although justices Dale Wainwright and Phil Johnson filed a separate opinion, disagreeing with the majority's creation of a new exception to the law but agreeing the case should return to the trial court; Justices David Medina and Don Willett did not participate.

“It's a setback for supporters of open government who believe taxpayers have a right to know how their money is spent in detail, not just in summary,” said Keith Elkins of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “We are seeing the public clamoring for more detail, not less, and the court is turning out the lights on transparency.”

But a spokeswoman for Perry said open government must be balanced with security.

“It's unfortunate that security is such an important issue in this day and age,” said Catherine Frazier. “The governor will continue advocating for the appropriate balance between security and transparency.”

Attorney Bill Christian, who represented the newspapers, warned that the ruling could be applied more broadly.

“We'll have to see how often government agencies assert this, how the Legislature responds next session,” he said.

Legislators this week approved legislation that would keep those details secret for 18 months after trips are completed but, noting the lawsuit, said that would apply only to travel expenses incurred after the bill takes effect Sept. 1.