TAB Newsroom Legislative Priorities Update

posted on 2.17.2025

Lawmakers have filed more than 4,000 bills and resolutions thus far in the 89th Texas Legislature and there are a little more than three weeks remaining in the normal filing period to introduce even more measures. Regular bill filing ends March 14. 

Committee activity on bills already filed is expected to ramp up considerably now that House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, has released House committee assignments.  The Texas Senate’s committee assignments were released in January.

TAB is part of the Texas Sunshine Coalition, a group of non-profits seeking to further the Open Government cause by addressing operational issues with the Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) and the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA). Specifically:

• TPIA Enforcement – implementing enforcement measures to make the TPIA work as intended.
• User-friendly Initiatives – implementing operational measures to make the TPIA more functional and responsive.
• Searchable-Sortable Records – codifying existing attorney general guidance into law by requiring governmental bodies to produce documents in their original format.
• Dates of Birth Access and Verification – disclosing dates of birth in public records involving candidates for public office or those involved in the criminal justice system.
• Open Meetings – adopting improvements to address proper meeting notice, closed meeting provisions, enforcement, and citizen participation in open meetings.

House and Senate lawmakers already have filed several pieces of legislation addressing some of these priority areas: 

Attorneys’ Fees / “Required Response”
SB 824 by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston / HB 2248 by Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo 
SB 919 by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo
SB 824 and HB 2248 secure a requestor’s right to recover attorney fees for successful civil lawsuits to force release of information. SB 824 and SB 919 address the “required response” issue. Existing law does not require governments to notify requestors that an agency doesn't have information that satisfies the request. Requestors are left to wonder what’s happened to their TPIA request. These bills require governmental agencies to make that notification within 10 business days of the request. 

Mediation of Open Records Disputes
SB 1130 by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston
Allows for third-party mediation between requestors and government to resolve issues of cost, alleged need to program or manipulate data, or dispute the need for an AG decision. 

Searchable-Sortable Records 
SB 50 by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo
Codifies existing guidance from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office into law by requiring governmental bodies to produce documents in their original format, e.g., releasing data in spreadsheet form, rather than converting it into a PDF.

Declaratory Judgment / Texas Open Meetings Act and Texas Public Information Act
SB 1293 by Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas
Allows an individual, including a member of the news media, to seek a declaratory judgment in an open meetings case. A court would determine whether a governmental body has complied with, or correctly construed that agency's legal or factual position concerning a provision of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Another section of the bill allows an open records requestor to seek a declaratory judgment in a Texas Public Information Act case involving the correct interpretation of the estimated cost of providing requested information or in seeking an Attorney General's office ruling. In either application a court may award costs and reasonable and necessary attorney fees.

Dates of Birth
SB 1293 by Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas
Authorizes release of dates of birth contained in government records except the personnel records of government employees, or as protected by HIPAA, other constitutional, or statutory law.

Open Records Hotline / Open Records Request Complaints
SB 1294 by Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas
Requires the Attorney General’s office to operate a toll-free open records hotline to assist Texans in the procedure to request information under the Texas Public Information Act. Also creates a written complaint process for requesters to use with the Attorney General’s office in instances in which the requestor believes that the government agency has failed to provide information in compliance with the law. The Attorney General’s office will review the complaints with the agency involved and issue a written response to both the agency and the complaining requestor.

Training / Texas Open Meetings Act and Texas Public Information Act
SB 1295 by Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas
Requires attorney training in the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Texas Public Information Act by lawyers advising government agencies about that agency's responsibilities under the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Texas Public Information Act.

More Open Government measures will be filed in the next three weeks addressing the remaining concerns listed above. TAB will advise stations of those bills once they are filed. 

Anti-SLAPP Litigation Law Under Threat

TAB’s signature media law win in the 2023 session was a successful defense of the Texas Citizen Participation Act (TCPA). The TCPA was enacted in 2011 to deter strategic lawsuits against public participation. SLAPPs are frivolous lawsuits that often allege defamation and are intended to intimidate defendants into silence. The law permits SLAPP defendants to quickly dismiss lawsuits before the expense of a full trial.

Attorneys have sometimes invoked the law to derail non-speech related cases resulting in some trial judges inappropriately accepting such motions, thereby delaying justice in cases unrelated to free speech. Senate and House measures filed in 2023 sought to address this concern, but the approach drafted would severely compromise how the law functions, thereby undercutting the law’s intended free speech protections. Those same bills have been refiled this year. The 2025 bill numbers and authors are SB 336 by Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and HB 2459 by Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano.

TAB is working closely with the bill authors, their staff, and the business community to address their concerns while preserving the Texas Citizens Participation Act’s protection against lawsuits designed solely to silence free speech.

Staying Informed

General managers and newsrooms can keep up with TAB’s newsroom legislative efforts by reading the TAB Billwatch.  This weekly email update contains information on bill filings, bill movements and news of TAB’s newsroom legislative agenda for the session. 

Billwatch is the best way for interested broadcasters to stay up to speed on legislation affecting newsrooms and to be informed when station staff are called upon to weigh in with lawmakers as the session progresses. 

Questions? Contact TAB’s Michael Schneider or call (512) 322-9944.

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