Travis, El Paso County attorneys, district attorneys sue Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the title of the Travis County Attorneys Office victim services director.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The county and district attorneys of Travis and El Paso counties filed a lawsuit Friday against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his office (OAG) over rules introduced in 2024 that require them to send sensitive case records to his office.

“The challenged rules exceed Defendants’ authority for rulemaking and invade privacy rights of third parties without statutory justification while at the same time requiring prosecutors to disclose information they are statutorily required to keep confidential,” the lawsuit states.

Paxton responded in a rare reply to a media request Friday afternoon. He called the four plaintiffs “rogue DAs” and the lawsuit “meritless.”

“It is no surprise that rogue DAs who would rather turn violent criminals loose on the streets than do their jobs are afraid of transparency and accountability,” he said. “My DA reporting rule is a simple, straightforward, common-sense measure that will shed light on local officials who are abdicating their responsibility to public safety. This lawsuit is meritless and merely a sad, desperate attempt to conceal information from the public they were sworn to protect.” 

The plaintiffs asked the court to issue a temporary injunction against the rule during the case, and ultimately a permanent injunction.

What does the rule require?

The rule, Texas Administrative Code Chapter 56, applies to counties with more than 400,000 residents and would allow the OAG to initiate the dismissal of an attorney found not in compliance.

It requires those counties to send “entire case files,” including:

• privileged communications;
• private personal information about law enforcement officers, crime victims, arrestees, criminal defendants, and witnesses;
• protected information such as grand jury testimony and materials, medical, mental health, and substance abuse disorders and treatments;
• sexually explicit images of both adults and children;
• juvenile records; and,
• law enforcement investigation materials obtained by prosecutors to prosecute crimes.

“Even if Defendants had the authority to impose the Challenged Rules, the rules are so vague that Plaintiffs cannot determine what statistical information and case files must be transmitted—and the purported consequence is possible removal from office,” the lawsuit reads.

When KXAN previously reported about the rule, Paxton said in a press release that it would “ensure accountability and promote public safety.”

“In many major counties, the people responsible for safeguarding millions of Texans have instead endangered lives by refusing to prosecute criminals and allowing violent offenders to terrorize law-abiding Texans. This rule will enable citizens to hold rogue DAs accountable,” he said.

Plaintiff attorneys hold press conference

At 1 p.m. Friday, the plaintiffs hosted a press conference to announce and explain their lawsuit.

Travis County Attorney Delia Garza and El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez spoke at the press conference, highlighting the statutory restrictions that exist against the rule and “purposeful overreach” by the OAG.

“Ken Paxton was not elected to prosecute crimes in Travis County. We are accountable to the voters, and there is a pathway to that without the extra oversight,” Garza said. “It is dangerous and should be worrying to all Texans. We needed to challenge this to protect the rule of law and the authority that we have been given.”

She noted that the effected counties have mostly Democratic majorities.

Sanchez said she had “significant concerns” about the rule’s potential burden on her county’s budget.

“These rules will essentially entail substantial expenses across various aspects of county administrations, including hiring additional personnel, ensuring and requiring that there has to be certain technological upgrades, ongoing maintenance and administrative tasks,” she said. “The sheer scale of this workload, spanning from manual review of case files to transcriptions of case transcripts, will require significant resource allocations and significant operational costs.”

The point raised by Sanchez about the workload suggests that the workload on the OAG would be many times greater. It is unknown how the OAG intends to process all of the case files from Texas’ most populous counties with any sort of timeliness.

Stephanie Richardson, the Travis County Attorneys Office victim services director, spoke to the potential chilling effect that the rule could have on their work to protect crime victims.

“Texas crime victims … have the right to be reasonably protected from harm or threats from the accused, and privacy as far as reasonably practical,” she said. “Making all information available to the OAG will bring into question the role of advocates and how we can ensure the safety of victims, if their information is disseminated with no regard to safety. We will also have no control over who gets that information and where it goes.”

The full lawsuit can be read below: