Williamson County has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of new oversight rules imposed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Travis County filed a similar lawsuit earlier this month.
The new rules require certain district and county attorneys to submit "performance reports" and grant the Attorney General's Office access to certain case files. In the lawsuit filed May 16, Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick, a Republican, argued Paxton exceeded his legal authority with the regulations.
"Attempts to comply with these rules could cost our county millions of dollars, endanger our ability to do our job and destroy a fundamental principle of our government — separation of powers," Dick said in a statement. "Paxton often attacks the overreach and overregulation of national government over local government. His new rules are the very same unconstitutional overreach and overregulation Paxton purports to fight on a daily basis."
The newly mandated reports require counties with more than 400,000 people to provide a wide range of information to the attorney general — including how cases are resolved, how budgets are spent, internal emails and details about how prosecutors make decisions.
In a statement, Paxton said the rules are a way to "rein in rogue district attorneys" and "ensure accountability and promote public safety." He said there would be consequences for district and county attorneys who intentionally violate the requirements.
"With these rules, Paxton has created a new mechanism to remove prosecutors he does not agree with, thereby overriding the will of the local voters who chose their local district attorney," Dick said.
Dick is the first elected Republican official to challenge the rules, which apply only to about a dozen of the state’s 254 counties — most of which have Democratic district and county attorneys.
