2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB3711

HB3711 gives the attorney general's open-records division a role assisting investigations of criminal Open Meetings Act offenses and requires certain local prosecutors to explain decisions not to proceed.

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Official caption: Relating to assistance in the investigation of certain open meetings offenses by the open records division of the attorney general's office.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Capriglione, Harris Davila, Cook. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

HB3711 gives the attorney general's open-records division a role assisting investigations of criminal Open Meetings Act offenses and requires certain local prosecutors to explain decisions not to proceed.
When a law-enforcement agency sends a district attorney, criminal district attorney or county attorney a report stating probable cause to believe an identified person committed a criminal offense under Government Code Chapter 551, the agency must simultaneously send a copy to the attorney general's open-records division.
The specified prosecutors may request the division's investigative assistance.
If a covered prosecutor receives the specified report, or represents the state in a Chapter 551 prosecution, and decides not to prosecute or to end the investigation, the office must publish the decision and its reason on any website the office maintains for at least one year.
Chapter 551 already contains offenses concerning prohibited series of communications, unlawful closed meetings, missing closed-meeting agendas or recordings, and unlawful disclosure of protected closed-meeting material, with their own elements and defenses.

Read the full explanation ↓

What does it do?

HB3711 gives the attorney general’s open-records division a role assisting investigations of criminal Open Meetings Act offenses and requires certain local prosecutors to explain decisions not to proceed. It took effect September 1, 2025. It does not transfer general prosecution authority to the attorney general or create a new open-meetings crime. Final law.

When a law-enforcement agency sends a district attorney, criminal district attorney or county attorney a report stating probable cause to believe an identified person committed a criminal offense under Government Code Chapter 551, the agency must simultaneously send a copy to the attorney general’s open-records division. This trigger is a probable-cause report identifying a person, not every allegation or routine request for government records.

The specified prosecutors may request the division’s investigative assistance. On a request from a law-enforcement agency or prosecutor under the new provisions, the division may assist. Agencies and the specified prosecutors must provide requested, not-yet-public investigative information to the division when the attorney general requests it. Sharing with the division is not a requirement to release the entire investigation publicly.

If a covered prosecutor receives the specified report, or represents the state in a Chapter 551 prosecution, and decides not to prosecute or to end the investigation, the office must publish the decision and its reason on any website the office maintains for at least one year. The statute does not require creation of a new website, and it does not require a prosecution merely because the report was received.

Chapter 551 already contains offenses concerning prohibited series of communications, unlawful closed meetings, missing closed-meeting agendas or recordings, and unlawful disclosure of protected closed-meeting material, with their own elements and defenses. HB3711 addresses investigation, information sharing and decision notices rather than replacing those rules. Existing offenses.

What changed along the way?

The introduced bill would have expanded the Texas Rangers public-integrity framework to cover Open Meetings Act offenses by specified county, municipal and school-board officials. The House substitute, carried into the engrossed bill, added mandatory requests for that unit’s help and a one-year website notice for decisions not to proceed.

The Senate substitute replaced that approach with the attorney general open-records division’s assistance and information-sharing system. It did not retain the proposed Texas Rangers expansion or the House version’s offense-date transition clause. The final act has a September 1, 2025 effective date without that special transition language; this summary does not infer how a particular older investigation must be handled.

Middleton’s Senate floor amendment specified the district, criminal district and county attorneys in the assistance provision and restored the one-year notice-and-reasons requirement within the new system. The Senate Journal records the amendment’s adoption on May 26, 2025. The journal, page 2757 identifies Middleton as its offeror; this resolves inconsistent author/date labels in the history and amendment index.

The House concurred in the Senate amendments, 82–40 with one present but not voting; there was no conference rewrite. The governor signed the bill June 20, 2025. Official history; amendment index.

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

People concerned about illegal government meetings gain a clearer state-assistance channel and a public explanation when a covered prosecutor declines or stops a case. Local investigators and prosecutors can obtain specialized help but must supply specified reports and requested information and maintain the required website notices.

The final posted fiscal note expects no significant state fiscal impact, with the attorney general and DPS able to absorb costs using existing resources. It says local prosecutions may increase but their fiscal impact cannot be determined.

Earlier House-stage fiscal notes estimated about $5.37 million over the 2026–2027 biennium and 11 additional positions, including six Rangers. Those estimates concerned the replaced public-integrity-unit proposal, not the final open-records-division law. HB3711 itself does not appropriate that amount or create those 11 positions.

Review boundary: This describes investigative assistance and disclosure of disposition reasons, not the merits of a specific complaint, a finding that a government body broke the law, or a grant of independent attorney-general prosecution power. A probable-cause report and a conviction are different things.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.