A Bit about Public Information Requests in Texas
Posted by jsg on Jul 29, 2023 in My Rants, Ramblings & Daily Updates, Texas
In making a public records request in Texas under the Open Records Act, you request the document, and if the county, which is the level I’m generally working in, doesn’t think they should give it to you they have to seek an opinion from the Attorney Generals Open Records Division (ORD). This is a very bureaucratic department, staffed with attorneys recruited in the Austin area, and I actually consider them to be the deep state. In their defense, they handle thousand of inquiries and it is a tough job. If they say no, you don’t get the document, but you can file suit to override that decision, and there are a number of ways to do so. If they say yes, the entity has two choices; provide the document, or they have to sue the AG to show why the opinion is wrong in court. I guess they could also just say FU as well, and I can tell of where that is happening on a national level in a day or so.
The whole thing is a long process. The entity has 15 business days to give a detailed response to the ORD, then the ORD has 45 business days to respond. I think that the county then has 30 days, to decide if they will file suit. If they do file, it has to be in Travis County where the AG’s office is. They can suck up huge amounts of time with this game and understand that we are just now learning how to play.
The requestor is able to file a brief with the ORD although few people actually do. The ORD is supposed to look at every request on its individual merits, but once they have decided an issue, it becomes a cookie cutter operation. They simply pull the stock answer off the shelf and send it. In the case of the documents, I am going after, a wrong decision was made back in the 80’s and that has been the “rule” since. No one had seriously challenged that ruling.
More to come...