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…