Texas Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Texas, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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For the Texas prison Work Program Plan's 100-mile rule, does an inmate's 'recorded place of residence' mean their actual home, or just the county they live in?
According to this 1990 opinion, it means the inmate's actual place of abode, dwelling, or habitation, not merely the county of residence, so an inmate cannot be placed in a designated work facility mo…
Two different 1989 Texas laws changed the required wording for a special-district real estate disclosure notice. Which version do sellers have to use?
According to this 1990 opinion, a seller who uses the notice wording required by Senate Bill 1207 satisfies both bills, because Senate Bill 1207's changes already include the standby-fee language Hous…
Does a Texas emergency services district have to provide fire and ambulance service to tax-exempt property, like a port or public school, inside its boundaries?
Yes. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that an emergency services district organized under article 2351a-8, V.T.C.S., may not deny its services to tax-exempt entities located within …
Can the Texas Insurance Commissioner appoint a conservator for an insurer without publishing the newspaper notice the law requires?
No. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that section 3 of Insurance Code article 21.28-A does not give the Insurance Commissioner an 'alternative route to conservatorship' that lets th…
How many members of a Texas state board or council do you need for a quorum, and does it count empty seats?
A quorum is a majority of the number of members the law provides for, not a majority of the members currently appointed. For the 23-member Council on Disabilities in this 1989 opinion, that meant 12 m…
How many judges serve on a Texas county juvenile board, and are they all entitled to be paid for it?
All of them, even past the stated cap. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that the Willacy County Juvenile Board consisted of six members: the county judge plus the district judges of…
When did the tougher teacher career ladder level three requirements take effect in Texas?
September 1, 1990. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that section 7 of House Bill 2566, which raised the performance standard for a teacher to reach level three of the career ladder …
Can a Texas optician give a free second pair of prescription glasses with a purchase?
Yes. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded the Texas Optometry Act does not prohibit a dispensing optician or ophthalmic dispenser from giving a free second pair of prescription spectacl…
Is residential gas and electricity exempt from Texas county sales tax?
Yes. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that residential-use gas and electricity are exempt from the county sales tax under Tax Code sections 323.206(a) and 151.317(a). One subsection…
Can the Texas Board of Health set construction and design rules for abortion facilities?
No, not on their own terms. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that Board of Health rules setting minimum standards for the 'construction and design' of abortion facilities exceeded t…
Is a Texas county liable under the state's high-voltage power line safety law if a county crew contacts an overhead line?
No, not under that particular statute. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that a county is not a 'person, firm, corporation, or association' within the meaning of V.T.C.S. article 143…
Can a Texas government board meet with its staff to get a briefing without posting an open-meetings notice?
Yes, within limits. In this 1989 opinion the Attorney General concluded that a conference where a quorum of a governmental body meets with its employees for the sole purpose of receiving information o…
Can a Texas county lease a closed, empty county jail to a private company to run as a prison?
In this 1988 opinion the Attorney General concluded yes, at least for the former Bexar County Jail. A state law barred a commissioners court from 'converting' a facility into a privately operated corr…
When can a former Texas district judge who served less than four years still be assigned to hear cases?
A 1987 law let the presiding judge of an administrative judicial region assign a 'former district judge who has served as judge of more than one district court' even without the usual four years of ju…
Can a Texas Lloyd's Plan insurance company issue the surety bond a contractor needs to do a public construction job in Texas?
No. The Attorney General concluded that public-works bonds under article 5160.A must be backed by a 'corporate surety,' and a Texas Lloyd's Plan carrier is an unincorporated association of individual …
Does the Texas Commercial Feed Control Act apply to a commercial feed lot that boards and feeds another person's cattle?
No. The Attorney General reaffirmed a 25-year-old position: a feed lot that keeps and feeds an owner's stock is performing a service (a bailment known as agistment), not selling or distributing feed, …
Can Texas library grant money go to a regional library system that includes private religious school libraries or for-profit libraries?
Only if the system's members are public libraries. The Attorney General concluded that a regional library system can have as members only public libraries, because only a public library can be accredi…
If a Texas appraisal district's mistake made my property tax late, can the taxing unit waive the penalties and interest?
Yes. The Attorney General concluded that a central appraisal district counts as an 'agent' of the taxing units it appraises for under Tax Code section 33.011. So when a taxpayer's bill becomes delinqu…
Did Texas Water Commission members have to live in different regions of the state?
No. The Attorney General concluded that Water Code section 5.052 did not create an enforceable geographic residency requirement. Its reference to a different 'section of the state' expressed a legisla…
Could a Texas bail bondsman combine cash and real property to meet the statutory security deposit minimum?
No. The Attorney General concluded that former article 2372p-3 required a Bexar County applicant to choose either the cash option or the property-deed option. Property used under the second option had…
Did Jefferson County have to build a replacement road before ending county maintenance and supervision of the entire dead-end Atwood Road?
No. The Attorney General concluded that the replacement-road requirement applied when part of a public road was closed or discontinued in a way that could strand travelers, not when the county ended m…
Could the Texas State Securities Board adopt a rule that automatically treated certain underwritten stock offerings as fair, just, and equitable based only on share price and total proceeds?
No. The Attorney General concluded that the proposed rule would let the securities commissioner bypass the statutory duty to examine whether an offering was fair, just, and equitable. The commissioner…
Could a Texas court master appointed under Senate Bill 1321 handle cases under Titles 1, 2, or 4 of the Family Code even though the bill amended a statute repealed by the same legislature?
Yes. The Attorney General concluded that the same-session amendment survived the statute's codification and repeal because the Government Code savings provision preserved amendments enacted by the leg…
When two 1985 Texas bills created conflicting administrative penalties under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which scheme controlled?
House Bill 1732's penalty scheme controlled in its entirety. The Health Department did not have to combine nonconflicting details line by line from House Bill 2091, though the Board of Health could ad…
Could a former Texas district judge who lost reelection still serve as a visiting judge?
Yes. JM-586 concluded that defeat for reelection no longer made an otherwise eligible former district judge ineligible for assignment under the Court Administration Act.
Who handles county employees' retirement payroll deductions, the county treasurer or the county auditor?
The county treasurer. JM-585 concluded that in counties of 10,000 or more people, the treasurer, not the auditor, is the payroll disbursing officer who deducts and transmits county employees' public r…
Can a Texas government board legally hold its meetings by conference call?
Not under the law as it stood in 1986. JM-584 concluded that a governmental body meeting by telephone conference call would not comply with the Texas Open Meetings Act unless the legislature specifica…
Can a community college board member who works at the district's bank vote on money decisions affecting that bank?
Yes. JM-583 concluded that the School Depository Act allowed a community college trustee tied to the district's depository bank to vote on routine expenditures that reduced the bank's deposits. JM-108…
Which firefighters are eligible to take a promotion exam under Texas civil service law?
All firefighters in the next-lower rank with enough service. JM-582 concluded that under the Firemen's and Policemen's Civil Service Act, any firefighter with at least two years of continuous service …
Can a county government hire someone related to the county judge, and is the Texas nepotism law too vague to enforce?
No, and no. JM-581 concluded that Texas's nepotism statute (article 5996a) is not unconstitutionally vague, and that it barred a county library from employing a first cousin of the county judge's moth…
Can a Texas county set later bar hours on some nights but not others?
No. JM-577 concluded that a county under 300,000 people has only two choices for mixed-beverage hours in its unincorporated areas: keep the standard hours or adopt the full extended late hours. It can…
Does a Texas housing authority have to hold a public hearing before buying existing buildings for low-income housing?
No. JM-576 concluded that the public hearing requirement in section 13a of the Housing Authorities Law applies only before a housing authority authorizes the construction of a project. Buying existing…
Do city-owned electric utilities in Texas have to file the ten-year load forecast required by the Public Utility Regulatory Act?
Yes. JM-571 concluded that section 16(c) of PURA, which requires every 'generating electric utility' to file a ten-year forecast of load and resources, applies to municipally-owned utilities even thou…
Does the farm-commodity exemption for loading trucks also let a farmer drive an overweight truck on Texas highways?
No. JM-567 concluded that the exemption in section 5(b) of article 6701d-11 for agricultural or forestry commodities applies only to the separate offense of loading a truck with intent to exceed the w…
Can one county annex a school district that sits partly in another county without that county's consent?
No. JM-541 concluded that section 19.021 of the Texas Education Code does not let one county's commissioners court annex a county-line school district in a way that affects territory in another county…
Did making paint and glue sniffing a jailable misdemeanor also turn it into delinquent conduct in Texas juvenile court?
No. JM-520 concluded that paint or glue sniffing remained 'conduct indicating a need for supervision' under the Texas Family Code, even after the criminal penalty rose to a Class B misdemeanor. The sp…
Does a Texas city have to make every job in its fire department a civil service position, or can it hire regular non-civil-service staff for work supervised by the fire chief?
It can hire non-civil-service staff for some roles. JM-515 concluded the Firemen's and Policemen's Civil Service Act (article 1269m) does not require a city to create civil service positions for all t…
When the Texas legislature appropriates the proceeds of a state land sale to an agency, does the agency also get to spend the interest that money earns?
No, not automatically. JM-511 concluded that when the legislature appropriated the proceeds of a land sale or lease to the Texas School for the Blind, it appropriated only the sale money itself, not t…
Did a veterinarian working for a Texas government agency need a state veterinary license if the agency, rather than the public, paid for the services?
Yes, if the employee practiced, offered, or attempted to practice veterinary medicine as the statute defined it. JM-339 found no government-employment exception based only on the source of compensatio…
Did Kleberg County have to sell its county hospital at public auction after following the hospital-sale statutes?
No. JM-335 concluded that article 1577's general public-auction procedure did not apply when a county sold a hospital under the more specific authority of article 4494l or article 4437e-2.
Could Texas let a heavily state-funded private nonprofit use the state telecommunications system to lower its long-distance costs?
No. JM-330 concluded that article 601b, section 10.07, limited access to governmental entities of the listed class, and a private nonprofit did not become such an agency merely by receiving public fun…
Did general Texas higher-education tuition exceptions apply to nonresident students at the Southwest Collegiate Institute for the Deaf?
No. JM-240 concluded that Education Code section 131.005(b)'s actual-cost tuition method exclusively governed nonresident tuition at the institute and displaced chapter 54's general exceptions.
Did a 1984 expansion of Dallas County Court at Law No. 1 jurisdiction also expand Courts Nos. 2 through 5?
Yes. JM-237 concluded that the statutes creating Dallas County Courts at Law Nos. 2 through 5 generally incorporated Court No. 1's jurisdiction, so the 1984 expansion applied to those courts too.
Could the Railroad Commission investigate a pipeline-to-pipeline gas rate when that rate would affect a later city-gate sale to a distribution utility?
Yes. JM-147 said the special presumption for negotiated large-volume rates did not prevent full review when the rate directly or indirectly affected a city-gate sale for resale to a gas distribution u…
Did Texas dealer-licensing law apply to boat dealers who sold trailers, and did they have to post the new $25,000 motor-vehicle dealer bond?
The licensing provision applied because they regularly sold trailers, but JM-136 said the bond did not because its conditions and legislative purpose targeted dealers selling motor vehicles.
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Attorney general opinions in Texas are written by the Texas Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.