State AG Opinions
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Does having lobbyists at your firm disqualify you from serving on a Texas state commission with a lobbyist conflict-of-interest rule?
The Attorney General concluded no. Under section 2.061(d) of the General Services Act, a person who is a member of a firm could still serve as a commissioner of the General Services Commission even if…
Can a Texas county enforce floodplain building rules over waterways that a port or navigation district controls?
The Attorney General concluded yes, but only to a limited extent. The Port of Houston Authority has exclusive jurisdiction over the building of structures over waterways within its geographical limits…
Can a Texas agency meet in closed session to discuss who to appoint to an advisory committee, or do open meetings rules require it stay public?
The Attorney General concluded the meeting had to stay open. Members of the Texas Commission on Fire Protection's two advisory committees (the Fire Protection Personnel Advisory Committee and the Volu…
Can the Texas National Guard use federal money to buy liability insurance for staff running a mobile recruiting shooting range, even from an out-of-state insurer?
The Attorney General concluded yes. The Texas Adjutant General, as head of the Texas National Guard, had authority to obtain liability insurance, paid for with federal funds, to cover Guard officers a…
Can Maine sweep money out of state trust accounts and bond accounts into the General Fund through a budget surcharge?
No, not for true trust monies. The AG concluded that Part KKK's 0.9% across-the-board General Fund transfer could not lawfully be applied to Baxter State Park trust funds, donor-restricted park gift a…
Do Texas juvenile probation officers have to supervise out-of-state juveniles sent here under the Interstate Compact on Juveniles, even ones Texas couldn't have prosecuted as juveniles?
The Attorney General concluded yes. By adopting the Uniform Interstate Compact on Juveniles as chapter 25 of the Family Code, Texas both authorized and required its juvenile probation officers to supe…
Can a Texas health district refuse to let you inspect old birth and death records and charge a fee?
The Attorney General concluded yes, as to the original records. Old birth records (more than 50 years old) and death records (more than 25 years old) are public and not exempt under the Texas Open Rec…
Where do funds left over from a USDA agriculture inspection agreement have to go in Texas?
The Attorney General concluded the money has to go into the state treasury. When a 1981 cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas Department of Agriculture ended i…
Can a Texas hazardous waste permit hearings examiner talk privately with agency staff about the case?
The Attorney General concluded no. A 1991 law (Senate Bill 1099) added section 361.0831 to the Health and Safety Code, governing hazardous-waste-permit contested cases before the Texas Water Commissio…
Does interest on Texas's proprietary school tuition fund go back to the fund or to general revenue?
The Attorney General concluded the interest goes to the state's general revenue fund. The Proprietary School Tuition Protection Fund, created by Education Code section 32.91, is a 'special fund in the…
Does the State Office of Administrative Hearings handle Court Reporters Certification Board cases?
The Attorney General concluded no. The 1991 law creating the State Office of Administrative Hearings (article 6252-13f) reaches only 'state agencies' that are subject to the Administrative Procedure a…
Could a Maryland District Court judge in one county issue a search warrant for property located in a completely different city or county?
Yes. Maryland's Attorney General concluded that a District Court judge had statewide authority to issue a search warrant for property anywhere in Maryland, not just within the judge's own district or …
Could Maryland's Motor Vehicle Administration let its investigators carry handguns, and were those investigators police officers?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that the Motor Vehicle Administration could let its Division of Investigative Services investigators carry handguns, but only if the investigators first obtained …
Can the Texas Public Utility Commission lower the assessment utilities pay without the Legislature?
The Attorney General concluded no. Section 78 of the Public Utility Regulatory Act set the assessment each utility pays (one-sixth of one percent of gross receipts) to fund the Public Utility Commissi…
Who runs the West Brazoria County Drainage District if the board election never happened?
The Attorney General concluded the Brazoria County commissioners court is still the district's governing board. A 1981 law was supposed to replace the commissioners court with a five-member board elec…
Does a Texas justice of the peace have to keep a paper copy of an electronic court docket?
The Attorney General concluded no. Article 45.13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure lets a justice of the peace or municipal court judge process and store the court's criminal docket electronically, an…
Can a Texas hospital pay doctors a flat fee to be on call to admit ER patients?
The Attorney General concluded yes, conditionally. Section 161.091 of the Health and Safety Code makes it an offense for a licensed health care professional to pay or accept money for securing or soli…
Can a Texas city cut a sales tax that is paying off its development corporation's bonds?
The Attorney General concluded that it cannot, as to bonds already issued. Section 4A of the Development Corporation Act lets a city hold a rollback election to reduce, or limit the time of, the sales…
Can the Texas dental board limit HIV-positive dental workers more than state law does?
The Attorney General concluded that several rules the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners adopted for HIV- and HBV-infected dental health care workers exceeded the board's authority because they con…
Who actually controls the rules of the Texas Automobile Insurance Plan?
The Attorney General concluded that the State Board of Insurance, not the private insurance companies that make up the Texas Automobile Insurance Plan (TAIP), holds the ultimate rulemaking authority o…
How can a Texas county pay for a county elections administrator's office?
The Attorney General concluded that even though the Interlocal Cooperation Act generally lets counties contract with other local governments for shared services, Victoria County had to fund its electi…
Can a Texas county pay back a private person's legal bills from a lawsuit?
The Attorney General concluded that article III, section 52 of the Texas Constitution prohibits Morris County from reimbursing two private landowners for the attorneys' fees they ran up in a right-of-…
Can a school employee keep their job if a relative is elected to the board?
The Attorney General answered eight questions about the Texas nepotism law (V.T.C.S. article 5996a) as it applies to school districts. The key holdings: an employee may keep a promotion he held for at…
Can a Texas hospital district lease space to a private drug treatment center?
The Attorney General concluded that the Chambers County Hospital District could lease part of its hospital facility to a group of private physicians to run an adolescent drug treatment center. Health …
Could Maryland enforce its 1992 'gas guzzler' tax surcharge and fuel-efficiency credit law, or did federal fuel economy law preempt it?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that a federal disclosure statute preempted the notice provision of Maryland's new gas guzzler tax law, that the tax surcharge and credit provisions themselves we…
Can a Maine town ban or require a permit for state-agency site investigation work for a radioactive waste facility?
No. The towns of Pittston, Edinburg, and Garfield Plantation could not stop the Maine Low-Level Radioactive Waste Authority's preliminary site investigation work. Their ordinances were preempted becau…
Can a city council member vote on zoning that affects their own neighborhood?
The Attorney General concluded that, in certain circumstances, chapter 171 of the Local Government Code requires a home rule city council member to abstain from voting on a zoning matter affecting ter…
Can a Texas city let employees donate sick leave to coworkers who run out?
The Attorney General concluded that a Texas home rule city has the authority to create a voluntary 'sick leave pool,' where employees contribute accrued sick leave that coworkers who have exhausted th…
Who decides how much a county court reporter in Texas gets paid?
The Attorney General concluded that the Denton County Commissioners Court, not the district judges, sets the salary of official court reporters in the county courts at law. Government Code section 52.…
Can Texas make you arbitrate a dispute instead of going to court?
The Attorney General concluded that the Texas general arbitration statute (V.T.C.S. article 224 et seq.) does not violate the 'open courts' provision of the Texas Constitution (article I, section 13).…
Can a Texas county charge subdivision owners to fix their roads, and how?
The Attorney General concluded the charge a county levied to improve subdivision roads under article 6702-3 was a 'special assessment,' not a tax, so property-tax rules did not apply. The county tax a…
Are life insurance cash values fully protected from creditors in Texas?
The Attorney General concluded that article 21.22 of the Insurance Code wholly exempted life insurance proceeds and cash values from seizure by creditors, and that this unlimited exemption controlled …
Can a Texas employer get an applicant's workers' comp injury history before a job offer?
The Attorney General concluded the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, as interpreted by the EEOC, bars an ADA-covered employer from getting an applicant's workers' compensation history before ma…
Can Texas add a $10 court cost in only some counties for the same crime?
The Attorney General concluded no. Section 51.702(b) of the Government Code let a county's commissioners court opt in to charging an extra $10 court cost on each criminal conviction in a statutory cou…
Can a Maryland funeral home legally refuse to embalm, or charge extra, because the deceased had HIV?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that a funeral home refusing to embalm, or charging extra fees for handling, an HIV-positive body was illegal discrimination under Maryland's mortician licensing …
Can Maine legislators serving on a special legislative committee vote to grant state agencies a hardship exemption from a legislatively imposed property-transfer moratorium?
No. The AG concluded that voting to grant or deny hardship exceptions to executive branch agencies is an executive function. Legislators may serve on the Special Committee on the New Capitol Area Mast…
Can a South Dakota school district let children attending a preschool operated by a local church ride the public school buses to and from preschool, if the buses are not rerouted and the public-school students are also riding?
No, on two independent grounds. The 1992 SD AG concluded that simultaneous public and private use of a school bus was not authorized by the statutory scheme (SDCL 13-24-20, 13-29-1, and 49-28-2(1) rea…
Can a Texas hospital district elect all its directors from single-member districts?
The Attorney General concluded yes. Chapter 286 of the Health and Safety Code let a hospital district elect all of its directors 'by place' from single-member districts, and those single-member distri…
Were Baxter State Park's user fees and timber sale revenues protected from Maine's 0.9% General Fund sweep, even though they sat in a dedicated revenue account rather than a formal trust account?
Yes. The AG concluded that the trust character of Baxter State Park follows the trust property and attaches to its products. The user fees and timber sales generated from the Park were 'products' of t…
Could Maryland's Office of Administrative Hearings dismiss an appeal because someone failed to pay a required filing fee?
The Attorney General concluded that Maryland's Chief Administrative Law Judge had the discretion to adopt a regulation providing that a nonindigent party's appeal would be dismissed for failing to pay…
Which Maryland state employees were covered by the old Merit System's EEO, whistleblower, leave, and overtime rules?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that the equal employment opportunity and whistleblower laws covered only classified and unclassified executive branch employees, while leave, holiday, and promot…
Is a Maryland state employee's full-salary accident leave pay after a job injury subject to federal and state income tax?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that pay received by a state employee under the accident leave statute, full salary continued after a job-related injury, qualified as compensation under a statut…
Is random drug testing of all public employees legal in Texas?
The Attorney General concluded that whether a particular government drug-testing policy is constitutional generally turns on facts, so it is beyond the scope of an AG opinion; the governing board must…
Can a Texas county build its jail somewhere other than the county seat?
The Attorney General concluded yes. Although county jails were traditionally placed at the county seat, a 1989 amendment to section 292.001 of the Local Government Code authorized a commissioners cour…
Is a Texas county auditor's own salary subject to the 5% budget increase cap?
The Attorney General concluded no. Local Government Code section 111.013 capped year-over-year increases in 'the amount budgeted for expenses of the county auditor's office' and in an assistant audito…
Can a Texas lender make you buy manufactured-home insurance from a company it picks?
The Attorney General concluded a creditor in a manufactured-home credit transaction could require the buyer to carry a paid-in-full property insurance policy for whatever term the creditor set, but co…
Can the Texas Commission on Jail Standards approve temporary or alternative inmate housing?
The Attorney General concluded yes. Only a county's traditional jail had to satisfy Chapter 351 of the Local Government Code. Other facilities that held county inmates answered only to the Commission …
Can a Texas budget rider force a state agency to adopt another department's procedures?
The Attorney General concluded no. A rider to a general appropriations act may only detail, limit, or restrict how appropriated money is spent. The rider here ordered the Texas Department on Aging to …
Can Maryland's Toll Facilities Police arrest someone on property that isn't owned or controlled by the Transportation Authority?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that Toll Facilities Police officers could exercise their arrest powers only on property owned, leased, or controlled by the Maryland Transportation Authority, wi…
Could a Maryland county in 1992 pass its local piggyback income tax rate increase before June 1 and still have the increase take effect on June 1?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that a county could enact or adopt a resolution or ordinance raising its local piggyback income tax rate above 50% before June 1, 1992, so long as the increase it…
Could Maryland's Secretary of Personnel cut a state employee's pay without telling the legislature?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that the Secretary of Personnel had authority under the old Merit System Law to decrease state employee pay rates without notifying the General Assembly, because …
Could Maine cut state employee salaries above $50,000 when those salaries were set by collective bargaining contracts the State had already signed?
Probably not for unionized employees. The AG concluded that the 3% and 2% salary cuts in P.L. 1991, c. 780, §§ AAA-1 and AAA-2 likely effected an unconstitutional impairment of the University of Maine…
Can Texas's TABC presume a seller 'knowingly' sold alcohol to a minor just for not checking ID?
The Attorney General concluded no. The statutes let the Alcoholic Beverage Commission suspend or cancel a license only when the seller 'knowingly' sold alcohol to a minor, and Texas courts have read '…
Can a Texas commissioners court remove people it appointed to a county district board?
The Attorney General concluded that members of the governing boards of a county emergency services district, a rural fire prevention district, and the Comal County Water Oriented Recreation District a…
Can a Texas school district pick a bidder who isn't lowest because they're local or grow the tax base?
The Attorney General concluded that an independent school district could not award a competitively-bid construction contract to a bidder who was not the lowest based on the bidder's residence or locat…
When an Idaho inmate has multiple consecutive sentences, each with both a fixed and an indeterminate portion, how do the fixed and indeterminate parts get stacked for parole eligibility?
All the fixed (minimum) terms must be served consecutively first, before any indeterminate period starts to run. After the fixed terms are completed, the indeterminate terms are added together to dete…
Does a Maryland county with zoning authority have to adopt its own forest conservation program, or can it let the state handle it?
Maryland's Attorney General concluded that the Forest Conservation Act required every local government with planning and zoning authority, including Carroll County, to develop and adopt its own local …
In Texas, who picks the doctor for county jail inmates: the sheriff or the commissioners court?
The Attorney General concluded that only the county commissioners court could contract with a licensed physician to provide medical services to county jail inmates, because the commissioners court hol…
Is a charity casino-night fundraiser with real betting legal in Texas?
The Attorney General concluded that people playing the casino games at the described nonprofit casino-night fundraiser would be committing the Penal Code offense of gambling, because paying for chips …
Did Texas's boxing admission tax apply to pay-per-view fees cable subscribers paid to watch fights at home?
No. The Attorney General concluded that the pay-per-view fees cable television subscribers paid to watch a live boxing telecast at home were not 'admission fees' under section 11(b) of the Texas Boxin…
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