Five Texas prosecutors are suing Attorney General Ken Paxton over a rule the AG says is a way to “rein in rogue district attorneys” who offer lenient treatment and sweetheart deals to criminals.
In the two lawsuits filed on Friday, the Texas Tribune reported, the district attorneys allege the rule, in effect since April, is an unconstitutional overreach that violates the separation of powers. It would impose unnecessary logistical and financial burdens on county prosecutors, they claim.
Paxton’s provision gives his office broad authority to access local DA office records. District attorneys who do not comply with the reporting may be charged with misconduct and removed from office.
DAs in Dallas, Bexar, and Harris counties filed one lawsuit, while others in Travis and El Paso counties filed another. Both pleadings seek to block Paxton from enforcing the rule, arguing that it violates the state constitution and federal law.
The new rule only applies to counties with at least 400,000 residents. That impacts only 13 of Texas’s 254 counties, the Tribune reported. It requires those local offices to provide all documents or communications produced or received by their offices, including confidential information.
Paxton’s rule was created after revelations, as Breitbart News reported in 2023, that billionaire George Soros spent more than $40 million to elect far-left district attorneys across the United States with the agenda to decriminalize crimes and enact no-bail policies.
In March, Paxton said lenient DAs were endangering Texans’ lives by failing to prosecute criminals “and allowing violent offenders to terrorize law-abiding Texans. This rule will enable citizens to hold rogue DAs accountable.”
In response to the lawsuits, Paxton told the Tribune Friday that 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.”
The attorney general added, “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.”
