Rulemaking Behind Closed Doors: Governor Abbott’s Secret Rulemaking. Worse Yet, All State Agencies Are Colluding with the Governor

Authors

Ronald Beal, Baylor University School of LawFollow

Abstract

In 2019, the Texas Legislature granted the Governor new powers to review the rulemaking process for certain state agencies. Since then, the Governor has apparently extended this authority of review over the rulemaking process to more agencies than he was authorized to. Some journalists and scholars, including this Author, have attempted to access the proposals and comments submitted to the rulemaking process by the Governor’s Office—and yet the records are withheld by the Texas Attorney General under claimed exceptions to the Texas Public Information Act. Despite the Attorney General’s claims, this Author and others maintain that any records of these submissions to agencies’ rulemaking processes by the Governor should be publicly available as a matter of law. This Article lays out the recent history of the Governor’s “Secret Rulemaking Division,” and ultimately explains why, under the Texas Administrative Procedure Act, any and all comments, suggestions, or changes made by the Governor to state agencies’ rulemaking processes must be released as public information.

Recommended Citation

Ronald Beal, Rulemaking Behind Closed Doors: Governor Abbott’s Secret Rulemaking. Worse Yet, All State Agencies Are Colluding with the Governor, 78 SMU L. Rev. F. 26 (2025)