Still a crook any way you look
Five Texas district attorneys are suing Attorney General Ken Paxton in two separate lawsuits filed Friday over new rules that would give the state’s top law enforcer meticulous access to their office’s records.
The two lawsuits, filed in Travis County District Court, seek to overturn a new rule created by Paxton’s office giving the attorney general office’s employees discretion to request almost all documents from cases county officials work on, regardless of whether they are being pursued. The district attorneys suing Paxton said the rule is an unconstitutional overreach that would needlessly burden offices who would have to present “terabytes” of data to the attorney general.
The rule, which took effect in April, only applies to counties with 400,000 residents or more — a threshold only 13 counties in the state meets. Paxton’s office has marked the provision as a way to “rein in rogue district attorneys” refusing to uphold the law. District attorneys from Travis and El Paso counties filed one suit, while district attorneys from Harris, Dallas and Bexar counties filed another. Both seek to block Paxton from being able to enforce the rule, alleging it violates the state constitution and federal law.
The background: The rule was originally proposed in the administrative code in September 2024 as Chapter 56 and requires district attorneys to provide all documents or communications produced or received by district attorneys’ offices, including confidential information.
Included in the rule’s definition of “case file” materials eligible for review are all documents, correspondence and handwritten notes relevant to a case. It also requires counties to submit quarterly reports to the attorney general on twelve different subjects, including specific information on indictments of police officers or for violations of election code.
The new Chapter 56 rules cite a 1985 statute prompting district and county attorneys to report information to the attorney general “in the form that the attorney general directs.” To enforce the collection of documents and communication, the rule would create an “oversight advisory committee” composed of employees from the attorney general’s office. The committee would be able to request entire case files from district attorneys at their discretion. Failing to provide the requested documentation to the advisory committee would result in “official misconduct” under the rule, allowing a district judge to remove a district attorney from office.
Why the district attorneys sued: The two lawsuits both claim the law cited by the new Chapter 56 does not provide Paxton’s office with the sweeping jurisdiction the rule creates — and that providing the information requested would be both expensive and illegal. One lawsuit from Dallas, Harris and Bexar county attorneys claims the rule seeks to achieve a “political objective” by burdening officials and creating strict consequences for noncompliance.
“These reporting requirements do not make communities safer,” Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said. “They do not identify trends, improve transparency, or enhance public trust. Instead, they create barriers that divert limited resources away from what matters most, which is prosecuting violent offenders and protecting our community.”
The trio’s lawsuit also maintains the rule violates the Texas Constitution’s protections on separation of powers because the attorney general has “no authority” to expand the definition of official misconduct.
The second lawsuit filed by the district attorneys from El Paso and Travis counties marks similar issues with the new rule, and also claims it would require illegally forfeiting the private information of victims working with their offices. In a press release from March, Paxton’s office states the new rule will help “assist citizens” in judging prosecutors’ performance, which attorneys in the second suit worry indicates private information could be shared with the public.
“The Challenged Rules purport to require an unprecedented level of disclosure of privileged and confidential information from only some of the State’s prosecutors for the sole purpose of unconstitutional oversight,” the lawsuit reads.
El Paso Matters has some additional coverage on the first lawsuit, filed by El Paso and Travis Counties. I don’t know enough about the laws in question to offer a reasoned take on this. I do know that there’s no reason to trust Ken Paxton and that he will use whatever power he is given to harass anyone he doesn’t like, so I know who the good guys are in this fight, and I’m with them. We’ll have to see what the courts say.