in Houston, Texas

The Internet has been in popular use for a dozen years, roadside motels offer free WiFi and elderly women trade stocks online. But in Dallas County, if you want to see who's bankrolling a candidate for sheriff or judge, you can't simply fire up your browser and see the campaign reports for yourself.
(Reports for the Dallas County sheriff's race below.)

That would be too easy.

Instead, you'll have to drive on the perpetually congested Interstate 35 to the Dallas County Health and Human Resources Building. Take an elevator to the Elections Department on the 8th floor. Then you'll need to track down a harried clerk, who will retrieve an armful of manila folders, which, if you're lucky, will include every campaign finance report neatly organized in chronological order with nothing missing. And if that happens, you may want to play the lotto when you're done.

You'll review these campaign finance reports in a tiny room on the sliver of the desk that isn't already occupied by a bulky, ancient computer -- with no Internet access. So don't think about Googling the names of contributors. Finally, if you want to make copies, you'll have to fill out a form and then wait a few days before picking up your materials at the civil division of the Dallas County district attorney's office downtown. This time, you'll have to pay for parking, assuming you can find it at all.

Does this sound easy to you?

Unfortunately, the Texas Election Code requires only state-level officeholders and candidates to file their campaign finance reports electronically. It exempts, for no discernible civic reason, those who are running for or holding county offices.

So if you're running for re-election as district attorney, a position with the authority to make, literally, life or death decisions, you don't have to post your campaign finance reports online for everyone to review. You just turn them into the local election office. And if you're a citizen who merely wants to see which white-shoe law firms are backing the top prosecutor in your county, you'll need to visit that local election office, which may very well be housed in the same building as the district attorney whose campaign you want to investigate. Have fun.

Many cities already posting records online

Interestingly, many cities, including Dallas and Fort Worth, require candidates for elected office to file electronically, which can set up a confusing set of rules for regular voters: From the comfort and convenience of their own home, they can check the donations to their state rep, their council member, or their mayor -- but not their precinct constable.

If posting campaign finance reports online makes it easier for average citizens to keep track of their elected officials, well, that doesn't really matter all that much. State Rep. Lon Burnam, a Fort Worth Democrat who sits on the House Committee on Elections, says that when lawmakers updated the Texas Election Code, they had little to gain by asking county officeholders to file electronically. That would make them unpopular with the county judge or the sheriff, whose backing could make the difference in a successful re-election campaign.

“Probably we did it that way because we were trying to minimize the resistance you would get for that type of legislation," Burnam says. "People think that things are supposed to be done rationally and logically, and they’re just not — instead they’re done addressing personal needs, power blocs and emotions.”

Burnam says that "trade groups" for county officeholders -- the associations that represent sheriffs, constables and county judges -- would fight against additional reporting requirements. As a rule, elected officials, particularly incumbents, don't like laws that shine light on how they do business.

"You don’t want to piss off the constable organization, and you don’t want to piss off the sheriffs' association, and you don’t want to piss off the commissioners, all of whom would have opposed the mandatory electronic filing," Burnam says.

Public's right to know

In fairness, there are likely some counties that don't have the resources to post campaign data online. Connie Spiller, the county and district clerk for Armstrong County (pop. 2,120), just outside Amarillo, says that while her office has the capability to upload reports, other counties don't even store information on computers -- other than maybe land records. Asked whether, on her two years as clerk, she ever saw a voter come in to review a campaign finance report, she says without so much as a brief pause, "never."

Of course, some say that the Texas Ethics Commission, which posts campaign finance reports for state officials, could merely add county data to their site. That would make life easier for voters and local election officials.

“If they filed electronically, it wouldn’t have to go through my office, and the information would be readily accessible to everyone," says Sharon Rowe, the elections administrator for Collin County, just north of Dallas.

Even if there are a few logistical issues to address -- to wit, some candidates for small county offices, like constable, may not be too deft at uploading their finance reports -- it's good practice to make government and campaigns as transparent as possible. Posting finance reports online is how you get there.

"The public has a right to know where their officials and candidates get their campaign money," says Craig McDonald, the executive director for Texans for Public Justice. "Keeping such records in dusty file cabinets in courthouse basements infringes on that right. In the Internet age, the proper place for public disclosures is the Internet."

Reports from challenger Lowell Cannaday, a Republican

July 16, 2007: Part 1, Part 2

Jan. 15, 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Feb. 4, 2008: Entire report

Feb. 25, 2008: Part 1, Part 2

March 31, 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

July 15, 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Oct. 6, 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

Reports from Sheriff Lupe Valdez, a Democrat

July 18, 2006: Entire file

Jan. 18, 2007: Part 1, Part 2

July 17, 2007: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Jan. 15, 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Feb. 4, 2008: Entire file

Feb. 23, 2008: Part 1, Part 2

July 15, 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Oct. 6, 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Photo: Money taken by Flickr user nathangibbs and used via the Creative Commons license.