Supreme Court Lets Abbott, Paxton Withhold Uvalde, Jan. 6 Records

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday allowed Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton to withhold records related to the 2022 mass shooting in Uvalde and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol narrowing the public’s avenues to access public records.

Ruling on a 2022 lawsuit brought by the group American Oversight, the justices decided that lower district courts do not have the authority to compel Texas’s executive officers to produce public records under law. Only the state Supreme Court has that authority — and even then, the governor is exempt from those orders.

Texas’s Public Information Act gives nearly every Texan the right to ask for government records and documents, except for some confidential information and records that are protected by privilege.

Three years ago, American Oversight filed a public records request asking for communications from the governor’s office relating to the Robb Elementary School shooting and records relating to Paxton’s involvement in the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C. 

Abbott had canceled his in-person address at the National Rifle Association convention after the shooting, while Paxton led the state’s lawsuit attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Both offices released some heavily redacted messages to the nonprofit, but also said that there were no communications matching some of the requests, and that some other records were privileged because they involved pending litigation.

In response, American Oversight sued both offices, alleging that they had failed to turn over relevant nonconfidential records. Both offices then challenged the nonprofit’s standing to file that challenge, but their challenges were denied by a district court and then an appeals court, leading Paxton to appeal again to the Texas Supreme Court.

The executive director of American Oversight, Chioma Chukwu, called the ruling “a gift to public officials who want to keep Texans in the dark” in a statement to the Dallas Morning News.

“The Texas Supreme Court just told the public that if the governor or attorney general withholds records — no matter how important — the requestor cannot bring them to court to enforce their rights under the Public Information Act,” Chukwu said in a statement, as quoted by the Morning News. “This decision guts the most effective tool Texans have to challenge secrecy at the highest levels of state government, where it is most needed.”

Chief Justice Harry Blacklock noted in his written decision that the public still can sue constitutional officers for violating the Public Information Act.