Ken Paxton, in His Official Capacity as Attorney General of Texas, and Greg Abbott, in His Official Capacity as Governor of Texas v. American Oversight

Supreme Court of Texas
══════════
No. 24-0162
══════════

Ken Paxton, in his Official Capacity as Attorney General of
Texas, and Greg Abbott, in his Official Capacity as Governor of
Texas,
Petitioners,

v.

American Oversight,
Respondent

═══════════════════════════════════════
On Petition for Review from the
Court of Appeals for the Third District of Texas
═══════════════════════════════════════

Argued February 19, 2025

CHIEF JUSTICE BLACKLOCK delivered the opinion of the Court.

JUSTICE YOUNG filed a concurring opinion.

Justice Sullivan did not participate in the decision.

This case raises the age-old question of the judiciary’s authority
to issue a writ of mandamus against an executive officer. See, e.g.,
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803). A private, nonprofit group
called American Oversight filed a petition for writ of mandamus in
district court against the Governor and the Attorney General, alleging
violations of the Public Information Act. As we observed thirty years
ago, however, the relevant statutes and constitutional provisions do not
empower district courts to issue writs of mandamus against
constitutional executive officers like the Governor and the Attorney
General. See A & T Consultants, Inc. v. Sharp, 904 S.W.2d 668, 672–73
(Tex. 1995). The Legislature could have provided otherwise in the three
decades since Sharp, but we conclude that it has not done so. As a result,
without addressing any other issues, we reverse the judgment of the
court of appeals and direct the district court to dismiss the mandamus
petition for lack of jurisdiction.
This result, which arises from the peculiarities of mandamus
jurisdiction, does not mean that constitutional executive officers cannot
be sued if they violate the Public Information Act. In addition to the
PIA’s criminal penalties, section 552.3215 authorizes suits for
declaratory or injunctive relief “against a governmental body that
violates this chapter.” TEX. GOV’T CODE § 552.3215(b). American
Oversight could have proceeded under that provision, which requires
the participation of the Travis County district attorney, but it did not.
In addition to that available remedy, the Legislature could have
attempted to authorize district courts to issue mandamus relief against
constitutional executive officers under the PIA, but we conclude that it
has not. It has, instead, limited mandamus jurisdiction over
constitutional executive officers to this Court. See TEX. GOV’T CODE
§ 22.002(c). We are bound to follow that statutory directive, just as all

2
governmental bodies in Texas, including those headed by constitutional
executive officers, are bound to follow the Public Information Act.
I.
In 2022, American Oversight sent three Public Information Act
requests to the Governor’s office. The first sought official
communications involving any non-governmental email address
attributed to the Governor. The second sought all text messages sent or
received by the Governor regarding official business. The third sought
emails between the Governor’s office and the National Rifle Association,
the Texas State Rifle Association, and similar groups.
The Governor’s office identified documents responsive to the first
request, but it considered them exempt from disclosure for various
reasons, including attorney-client privilege. It requested a ruling from
the Attorney General’s office, as contemplated by the PIA. See generally
TEX. GOV’T CODE § 552.301. The AG’s office determined that all the
responsive documents were privileged or related to pending litigation.
For the second request, the Governor’s office again sought to withhold
the responsive information and submitted a request for a ruling to the
AG’s office. The AG’s office agreed that some of the responsive
information must be or could be withheld, but it also ruled that some of
the information must be turned over. The Governor’s office provided
American Oversight with roughly 100 pages of text messages in
response to the second request. For the third request, the Governor’s
office determined that it had no responsive information.
American Oversight also sent four Public Information Act
requests to the Attorney General’s office. The first sought all emails

3
sent by the Attorney General or his solicitor general between January 6
and January 8, 2021. The second sought official communications
involving any non-governmental email address used by the Attorney
General. The third sought all text messages sent or received by the
Attorney General regarding official business. The fourth sought emails
between the AG’s office and the National Rifle Association, the Texas
State Rifle Association, and other similar groups.
For the first and third requests, the AG’s office produced some
responsive documents but sought to withhold others. It requested an
AG’s office ruling, 1 and the ruling confirmed its authority to withhold
the remaining information. For the second request, the AG’s office
sought to withhold all responsive information, and the resulting ruling
confirmed that approach. For the fourth request, the AG’s office
identified no responsive information.
American Oversight was unsatisfied with both offices’ responses.
It filed a petition for writ of mandamus in Travis County district court
against the Governor and the Attorney General. It brought the
mandamus petition under section 552.321 of the PIA, which provides

1 When the AG’s office requests a ruling under the PIA, an oddity arises

in that it must submit the request to another section of its own office. In such
circumstances, we understand that the section of the AG’s office requesting the
ruling and the section of the AG’s office making the ruling are sealed off from
one another and, at least in principle, operate independently. See generally
Pub. Util. Comm’n of Tex. v. Cofer, 754 S.W.2d 121 (Tex. 1988). We are not
asked to consider whether two sections of the same office, both of which answer
to and exercise authority derived from the same constitutionally elected officer,
can ever truly operate independently of one another. The PIA affords no
alternative way of handling information requests submitted to the AG’s office,
which means the office is often obligated to “wear two hats” in this way and to
navigate the consequent ethical challenges as best it can.

4
that “[a] requestor or the attorney general may file suit for a writ of
mandamus compelling a governmental body to make information
available for public inspection if the governmental body . . . refuses to
supply public information.” Id. § 552.321(a). Section 552.321 further
provides that the suits authorized by subsection (a) “must be filed in a
district court for the county in which the main offices of the
governmental body are located.” Id. § 552.321(b).
The Governor and the Attorney General (collectively, “the State”)
challenged the district court’s jurisdiction. They argued that sovereign
immunity bars the mandamus petition because American Oversight did
not plead a viable claim of the State’s refusal to provide public
information. They contended they had properly followed the PIA’s
procedures for withholding the documents not produced, and they
provided affidavits indicating they had conducted a “diligent and good
faith search” for responsive information. The district court denied the
State’s pleas to the jurisdiction, and the State filed an interlocutory
appeal. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 51.014(a)(8).
On appeal, the State re-urged its initial position but also pointed
out an additional potential defect in the district court’s jurisdiction. See
Tex. Dep’t of Transp. v. Self, 690 S.W.3d 12, 20 (Tex. 2024) (questions of
subject-matter jurisdiction “cannot be waived” and “can be raised for the
first time on appeal”). The State contended that the Legislature has
empowered only the Supreme Court to issue writs of mandamus against
constitutional executive officers, see TEX. GOV’T CODE § 22.002(c), and
that the PIA does not authorize district courts to do so. American
Oversight disagreed, arguing that section 552.321 grants district courts

5
mandamus jurisdiction over any “governmental body,” including
governmental bodies headed by constitutional executive officers.
The court of appeals affirmed. 683 S.W.3d 873, 884 (Tex. App.—
Austin 2024). It held that despite the general statutory reservation of
mandamus authority over constitutional executive officers to the
Supreme Court, section 552.321(b) authorizes district courts to issue
mandamus relief when any governmental body, including one headed by
a constitutional executive officer, “refuses to supply public information.”
Id. The court of appeals further held that American Oversight had
alleged a viable claim that the State “refuse[d] to supply public
information.” Id. at 885; see TEX. GOV’T CODE § 552.321(a). The State
petitioned for review, and we granted the petition.
II.
A.
The Legislature has authorized PIA requestors like American
Oversight to “file suit for a writ of mandamus compelling a
governmental body to make information available.” TEX. GOV’T CODE
§ 552.321(a) (emphasis added). Section 552.321 could certainly have
authorized a procedural vehicle other than a mandamus petition, with
all of its attendant substantive and procedural quirks. For instance, the
very next section authorizes suits by district and county attorneys for
declaratory and injunctive relief, either on their own or at the urging of
a dissatisfied requestor. Id. § 552.3215(c), (e). But rather than give
requestors a unilateral right to sue for declaratory relief, injunctive
relief, or some other conventional remedy available in run-of-the-mill
civil litigation, the Legislature chose to authorize requestors to pursue

6
petitions for writ of mandamus. And a common-law term like “writ of
mandamus,” when transplanted into the statutory law, “brings the old
soil with it.” Hall v. Hall, 584 U.S. 59, 73 (2018) (internal quotation
omitted). The outcome of this appeal turns on the Legislature’s choice
to provide mandamus relief as the sole remedy available to requestors
under section 552.321(a). That choice, which we must assume was
deliberate, naturally incorporates Texas law’s pre-existing limitations
on mandamus relief, including limitations on jurisdiction.
The history of the writ of mandamus in Texas dates (at least) to
the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas, which charged the new
Congress with adopting the English common law, from which the writ
derives. REPUB. TEX. CONST. of 1836, art. IV, § 13, reprinted in 1 H.P.N.
Gammel, The Laws of Texas 1822–1897, at 1074 (Austin, Gammel Book
Co. 1898); Act approved Jan. 20, 1840, 4th Cong., R.S., § 1, 1840 Repub.
Tex. Laws 3, 4, reprinted in 2 H.P.N. Gammel, The Laws of Texas
1822–1897, at 177, 178 (Austin, Gammel Book Co. 1898) (adopting the
common law of England). 2 The writ itself long pre-existed the Republic,
of course. See THOMAS TAPPING, THE LAW AND PRACTICE OF THE HIGH
PREROGATIVE WRIT OF MANDAMUS 56 (London, Wm. Benning & Co.
1848) (tracing the origins of the writ of mandamus perhaps to the
fourteenth-century reign of King Edward III, but at the latest to Bagg’s
Case from the King’s Bench in 1615).

2 See also Bradley v. McCrabb, Dallam 504, 506, 508 (Tex. 1843)
(holding that the inadequate-legal-remedy requirement for writs of mandamus
was part of the English common law adopted into the law of the Republic); Yett
v. Cook, 268 S.W. 715, 718–19 (Tex. 1925) (observing that the writ of
mandamus is “construed in light of the common law”).

7
This Court often issues the writ of mandamus—or does so
provisionally—to compel a lower court to perform a duty that is “simply
ministerial and involves no judicial discretion.” Lloyd v. Brinck, 35 Tex.
1, 10 (1871). But the writ’s historical uses extend beyond supervision of
lower courts and include the possibility that writs of mandamus may be
issued against officials in other branches of government, in appropriate
cases where the issuing court is lawfully authorized to do so. The writ
is an order from a court “whereby a person or officer is required to do
something which he wrongfully declines to do,” and “in exceptional cases
it may properly be given a restraining effect” to “revers[e] or amend[]
. . . a previous act.” Seagraves v. Green, 288 S.W. 417, 425 (Tex.
[Comm’n Op.] 1926); cf. Lewright v. Bell, 63 S.W. 623, 623 (Tex. 1901)
(“The courts cannot, by the writ in question, compel an officer to perform
an official duty, where that duty involves . . . discretion on his part.”).
In mandamus actions against non-judicial officials, we have
stated that “[m]andamus may issue to compel public officials to perform
ministerial acts, as well as ‘to correct a clear abuse of discretion by a
public official.’” In re Williams, 470 S.W.3d 819, 821 (Tex. 2015) (quoting
Anderson v. City of Seven Points, 806 S.W.2d 791, 793 (Tex. 1991)). “An
act is ministerial when the law clearly spells out the duty to be
performed by the official with sufficient certainty that nothing is left to
the exercise of discretion.” Id. (quoting same).
With these general observations about the nature of the writ of
mandamus in mind, we turn to the question of the power of the district
court in this case, under our Constitution and statutes, to issue the writ
requested by American Oversight.

8
B.
The question is whether section 552.321 of the Government Code
authorizes the district court to issue a writ of mandamus against two
constitutional executive officers, the Governor and the Attorney
General. To answer that question, we must first understand the
constitutional and statutory landscape in which section 552.321
operates.
District court jurisdiction is generally defined by Article V,
section 8 of the Constitution:
District Court jurisdiction consists of exclusive, appellate,
and original jurisdiction of all actions, proceedings, and
remedies, except in cases where exclusive, appellate, or
original jurisdiction may be conferred by this Constitution
or other law on some other court, tribunal, or
administrative body. District Court judges shall have the
power to issue writs necessary to enforce their jurisdiction.
TEX. CONST. art. V, § 8. This provision does not mention writs of
mandamus, but the Constitution is not unconcerned with the subject.
With respect to the Supreme Court, Article V twice mentions the writ of
mandamus. Section 3(a) provides that the “Supreme Court and the
Justices thereof . . . may issue . . . writs of mandamus . . . as may be
necessary to enforce its jurisdiction,” subject to “such regulations as may
be prescribed by law.” Id. § 3(a). That same section further provides:
“The Legislature may confer original jurisdiction on the Supreme Court
to issue writs of quo warranto and mandamus in such cases as may be
specified, except as against the Governor of the State.” Id. 3 The latter

3 Article V elsewhere mentions the writ of mandamus in section 5(c),

which authorizes the “Court of Criminal Appeals and the Judges thereof,”

9
provision reflects our Constitution’s acknowledgement of the obvious
separation-of-powers concerns implicated by judicial authority to issue
writs of mandamus against high-ranking executive officials. See TEX.
CONST. art. II, § 1. 4 The Legislature has acknowledged those concerns
as well, as reflected in the limitations it has placed on the judiciary’s
authority to issue writs of mandamus against constitutional executive
officers. See TEX. GOV’T CODE § 22.002(c). We turn now to those
limitations.
A district court’s constitutional grant of jurisdiction consists of
“exclusive, appellate, and original jurisdiction of all actions,
proceedings, and remedies,” which the parties agree includes
mandamus actions. TEX. CONST. art. V, § 8. 5 An important caveat

“[s]ubject to such regulations as may be prescribed by law,” to issue the writ of
mandamus “in criminal law matters.” TEX. CONST. art. V, § 5(c).
4 “The powers of the Government of the State of Texas shall be divided

into three distinct departments, each of which shall be confided to a separate
body of magistracy . . . and no person, or collection of persons, being of one of
these departments, shall exercise any power properly attached to either of the
others . . . .”
5 Until 1985, the Constitution specifically mentioned the writ of
mandamus as within a district court’s authority. See TEX. CONST. art. V, § 8
(amended 1985) (providing that “[d]istrict [c]ourt[s] . . . have power to issue
writs of . . . mandamus”). It no longer does so, instead providing only that
“District Court judges shall have the power to issue writs necessary to enforce
their jurisdiction.” TEX. CONST. art. V, § 8. Section 24.011 of the Government
Code authorizes a district judge to “grant writs of mandamus, injunction,
sequestration, attachment, garnishment, certiorari, and supersedeas and all
other writs necessary to the enforcement of the court’s jurisdiction.” TEX.
GOV’T CODE § 24.011. The parties do not question the general authority of
district courts to issue writs of mandamus. They focus, as do we, only on
whether that authority extends to constitutional executive officers in PIA
cases.

10
follows, however. The apparently broad grant of jurisdiction does not
extend to “cases where exclusive, appellate, or original jurisdiction may
be conferred by this Constitution or other law on some other court,
tribunal, or administrative body.” Id. (emphasis added). The
Legislature is thus authorized to withdraw jurisdiction from district
courts and confer it upon other courts. One way in which the Legislature
has done so is section 22.002 of the Government Code:
(a) The supreme court or a justice of the supreme court may
issue . . . all writs of quo warranto and mandamus
agreeable to the principles of law regulating those writs,
against a statutory county court judge, a statutory probate
court judge, a district judge, a court of appeals or a justice
of a court of appeals, or any officer of state government
except the governor, the court of criminal appeals, or a
judge of the court of criminal appeals.
....
(c) Only the supreme court has the authority to issue
a writ of mandamus or injunction, or any other
mandatory or compulsory writ or process, against any of
the officers of the executive departments of the
government of this state to order or compel the
performance of a judicial, ministerial, or discretionary act
or duty that, by state law, the officer or officers are
authorized to perform.
TEX. GOV’T CODE § 22.002 (emphases added).
Setting aside the constitutional question of whether any court can
issue a writ of mandamus against the Governor, see post at 25–37
(Young, J., concurring), section 22.002(c) states that only this Court has
authority to do so “against any of the officers of the executive
departments of the government of this state,” TEX. GOV’T CODE
§ 22.002(c). In other words, no court, except for the Supreme Court, has

11
that authority. As we have held before, the phrase “officers of the
executive departments of the government of this state” includes the
officers of the Executive Department enumerated in the Constitution:
The Executive Department of the State shall consist of a
Governor, who shall be the Chief Executive Officer of the
State, a Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State,
Comptroller of Public Accounts, Commissioner of the
General Land Office, and Attorney General.
TEX. CONST. art. IV, § 1; see Sharp, 904 S.W.2d at 672 (“[T]he
[C]onstitution identifies seven officials as executive officers” and
section 22.002(c) “confer[s] exclusive original jurisdiction on this Court
over mandamus proceedings against executive officers, except for the
[G]overnor.”). 6
C.
To summarize, district courts generally have broad original
jurisdiction unless another law provides otherwise. Section 22.002(c) is
another law providing otherwise. It says no court but the Supreme
Court may issue a writ of mandamus against constitutional executive
officers, which includes the two parties at issue here, the Governor and
the Attorney General. District courts therefore lack jurisdiction to issue
a writ of mandamus against the Governor or the Attorney General,
unless some other statute overrides section 22.002(c) and empowers
them to do so.

6 Sharp’s count of seven constitutional executive officers included the

Treasurer, a position eliminated by a 1995 constitutional amendment. See
Tex. S.J. Res. 1, 74th Leg., R.S., 1995 Tex. Gen. Laws 4980 (adopted at the
general election on Nov. 7, 1995, by a vote of 495,181 to 218,473).

12
American Oversight contends that section 552.321 is just such a
statute. It states:
(a) A requestor or the attorney general may file suit for a
writ of mandamus compelling a governmental body to
make information available for public inspection if the
governmental body refuses to request an attorney general’s
decision as provided by Subchapter G or refuses to supply
public information or information that the attorney general
has determined is public information that is not excepted
from disclosure under Subchapter C.
(b) A suit filed by a requestor under this section must be
filed in a district court for the county in which the main
offices of the governmental body are located . . . .
TEX. GOV’T CODE § 552.321. This is not the first time we have considered
the interplay between the PIA’s mandamus remedy and section 22.002’s
restrictions on mandamus jurisdiction against executive officers. In
1995, the statute authorizing PIA mandamus actions was, in relevant
respects, identical to today’s subsection (a), quoted above. Subsection (b)
did not yet exist. The question arose of a district court’s authority to
issue a writ of mandamus under the PIA against the Comptroller.
Relying on section 22.002(c)’s clear reservation to the Supreme Court of
exclusive mandamus jurisdiction over constitutional executive officers,
we held:
[D]istrict courts generally have no jurisdiction over
executive officer respondents. Any exception to this rule
would require express statutory authorization by the
legislature naming district courts as the proper fora. See
id. § 552.353(b)(3). Under the current statutory scheme,
when a relator seeks to compel an executive officer to
perform duties imposed by law, generally this Court alone
is the proper forum.

13
Sharp, 904 S.W.2d at 672. Further, although the statute authorized
mandamus relief against a “governmental body,” we held that the
constitutional executive officer himself, in that case the Comptroller,
was “the proper party,” because he had “the legal obligation to perform
the duties under [the PIA].” Id. at 673. Because the constitutional
executive officer himself is the proper respondent in a mandamus action
to enforce the PIA against a constitutional office, the law’s restrictions
on mandamus relief against such officers were implicated. See id. The
Legislature had not avoided this quandary by authorizing mandamus
relief against the “governmental body,” as opposed to its officer. See id.
at 681. 7
In 1999, the Legislature added subsection (b) to section 552.321,
which now states that “[a] suit filed by a requestor under this section
must be filed in a district court for the county in which the main offices
of the governmental body are located.” TEX. GOV’T CODE § 552.321(b).
Determining this provision’s meaning determines the outcome of this
appeal.
American Oversight argues that subsection (b) is the
Legislature’s effort, in response to Sharp, to empower district courts to

7 The extent to which any legally relevant distinction may be drawn

between a constitutional executive officer and the governmental body he heads
is a complicated and interesting question. The parties join issue on it to some
extent, but we need not endeavor to answer it here. It is enough, for present
purposes, to follow Sharp’s holdings that (1) the proper respondent in a
mandamus action under the PIA involving a constitutional executive office is
the constitutional executive officer; and (2) the PIA’s mandamus remedy
against a “governmental body” necessarily implicates section 22.002(c)’s
limitations on the judiciary’s authority to issue mandamus relief against
constitutional executive officers.

14
issue writs of mandamus against constitutional executive officers. It
contends that, in addition to being later in time, subsection (b) is more
specific than section 22.002(c) in that it specifically governs PIA
mandamus actions, whereas section 22.002(c) governs mandamus
actions generally.
The State responds that section 552.321(b) merely specifies where
a mandamus action under the PIA must be filed, rather than expanding
the authority of a district court over an executive officer respondent who
is not otherwise within the court’s jurisdiction. In the State’s view,
subsection (b) does not mention constitutional executive officers or
jurisdiction, and it should be understood as a general venue provision
for PIA mandamus actions, which remains subject to section 22.002(c)’s
specific limitation on a district court’s mandamus authority over
constitutional executive officers.
We conclude that section 552.321(b) did not expand the
jurisdiction of district courts over constitutional executive officers. The
Supreme Court’s exclusive jurisdiction under section 22.002(c) of the
Government Code to issue writs of mandamus against constitutional
executive officers has been a settled feature of Texas law for at least a
century, and section 552.321(b) contains none of the indicia required to
overcome it.
To begin with, section 552.321(b) does not mention jurisdiction,
authority, power, or anything of the sort. The key holding of Sharp,
which American Oversight contends has been abrogated by
subsection (b), is that district courts lack the jurisdiction—that is, the
power—to issue writs of mandamus against constitutional executive

15
officers under the PIA. But nothing in section 552.321(b) speaks to the
question of the district court’s power. The provision reads:
(b) A suit filed by a requestor under this section must be
filed in a district court for the county in which the main
offices of the governmental body are located . . . .
Id. By its own terms, subsection (b) merely establishes a mandatory
venue for the suits authorized by subsection (a). That venue is the local
district court, which in the overwhelming majority of PIA disputes
across all levels of state and local government throughout Texas will
have the power to entertain such a suit. In the small fraction of PIA
disputes involving constitutional executive officers, however, Sharp
instructs that district courts lack jurisdiction. American Oversight asks
us to read into subsection (b)’s venue requirement an unspoken
legislative intent to abrogate Sharp and to expand the power of district
courts to include all PIA mandamus actions, including those against
constitutional executive officers that would otherwise run afoul of
section 22.002(c) of the Government Code. The problem is that
subsection (b) does not say that. It reads as a garden-variety venue
provision, which resembles many other venue provisions, 8 none of which

8 See, e.g., TEX. GOV’T CODE § 2007.044(b) (“A suit under this section

must be filed in a district court in the county in which the private real property
owner’s affected property is located.”); TEX. GOV’T CODE § 551.142(d) (“A suit
filed by the attorney general under Subsection (c) must be filed in a district
court of Travis County.”); TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 342.302(c) (“A suit under this
section must be filed in a justice court of the county [from which a license is
required under this chapter].”); TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 342.304(b) (“A suit under
this section must be filed in a justice court of the county in which the license is
issued.”); TEX. GOV’T CODE § 2007.021(a) (“A suit under this subchapter must
be filed in a district court in the county in which the private real property
owner’s affected property is located.”).

16
are thought to alter the jurisdiction of any court. See Tex. Mut. Ins. Co.
v. Chicas, 593 S.W.3d 284, 289 (Tex. 2019) (statute providing for venue
transfers “clearly did not [implicate] subject-matter jurisdiction” (citing
Morales v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 241 S.W.3d 514, 516 n.1 (Tex. 2007))).
A key pillar of American Oversight’s position is the notion that
subsection (b) was the Legislature’s answer to Sharp. Whether or not
that is true as a matter of legislative history, the operative force of
subsection (b) derives from its text, not from the purpose it was thought
to serve at the time it was enacted. Yet even if we assume subsection (b)
was indeed the Legislature’s “answer” to Sharp, that gets us nowhere,
because the question remains: What was the answer? American
Oversight suggests that the answer must have been to empower district
courts with mandamus authority over constitutional executive officers.
But we must discern the Legislature’s answer from the text it chose, and
nothing in the text of subsection (b) accomplishes such a result.
Subsection (b) simply does not pick up the glove thrown down by
Sharp, which holds that “an action against” the “executive officer
respondents” “would require express statutory authorization by the
legislature naming district courts as the proper fora.” 904 S.W.2d at 672
(emphasis added). The proper fora for what? For actions against
executive officer respondents. Section 552.321(b) does not mention
constitutional executive officers at all. It therefore does nothing to
expressly authorize district courts as the proper fora for mandamus suits
against those officers.
Immediately following Sharp’s indication that only “express
statutory authorization” would do the trick, the Court cited an example,

17
from within the PIA, of the kind of express language it had in mind. See
id. The example the Court provided, section 552.353(b)(3), at the time
referred to:
[A] petition for a declaratory judgment, a writ of
mandamus, or both, against the attorney general in a
Travis County district court seeking relief from compliance
with the decision of the attorney general . . . .
Act of May 4, 1993, 73d Leg., R.S., ch. 268, § 1, 1993 Tex. Gen. Laws 583,
607 (amended 2009) (current version at TEX. GOV’T CODE § 552.353(b)(3))
(emphasis added). Thus, had the Legislature wanted to respond to
Sharp by further empowering district courts, the Court provided
line-by-line instructions. It did so by pointing to a provision specifically
contemplating a mandamus petition against the attorney general in a
district court. But subsection (b)’s venue requirement looks nothing like
the statute the Court pointed to as a rubric for accomplishing the result
American Oversight seeks. It looks, instead, like many other venue
provisions throughout the statute books, to which courts do not typically
assign jurisdictional significance. See supra note 8.
Two basic rules arose from Sharp: (1) district courts lack the
power to issue PIA mandamus relief against constitutional executive
officers; and (2) the Supreme Court generally has the power to issue PIA
mandamus relief against constitutional executive officers (setting aside
the Governor). 904 S.W.2d at 672–73. To these two rules, the
Legislature added another: (3) all PIA mandamus actions must be
brought in district court. TEX. GOV’T CODE § 552.321(b). American
Oversight would like the Legislature’s answer to Sharp to have been
that the third rule overrides the first rule. But subsection (b) does not
say that. Indeed, by restricting venue in PIA mandamus actions to

18
district court without mentioning constitutional executive officers or the
jurisdiction of any court, the Legislature may very well have been
responding to Sharp by preventing parties from filing mandamus
actions against constitutional executive officers in the Supreme Court.
In other words, the Legislature may have intended the third rule
mentioned above to override the second rule, not the first.
We need not decide today whether an original mandamus action
in this Court under the PIA against a constitutional executive officer
could proceed in the face of subsection (b)’s mandatory venue
requirement. It is enough, for present purposes, to hold that the text of
subsection (b) of section 552.321 contains no indication that its aim was
to expand the authority of district courts over constitutional executive
officers. The text of subsection (b) fixes venue in the local district court
for the mandamus actions authorized by subsection (a). It does so
without changing the nature of the actions authorized by subsection (a)
or the power of various courts over those actions. Because that is all the
text says, that is all the text does.
D.
For American Oversight to prevail, it would have to be the case
that a statute authorizing lower courts to issue writs of mandamus
against a general category of respondent that includes constitutional
executive officers is enough to override section 22.002(c)’s grant to this
Court of exclusive mandamus jurisdiction against constitutional
executive officers. Yet if this were true, section 22.002(c) would always
give way to general statutory grants of mandamus authority to lower
courts. We have never taken such a limited view of section 22.002(c).

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To the contrary, as we held in Sharp, overcoming section 22.002(c)’s
prohibition on lower-court mandamus authority over constitutional
executive officers will typically require “express statutory
authorization” of the sort we pointed to in that case. See Sharp,
904 S.W.2d at 672 (pointing to a provision specifically contemplating
mandamus relief in district court against the attorney general).
American Oversight argues that if subsection (b) is not a
jurisdictional grant, then it must be superfluous. See Hunter v. Fort
Worth Cap. Corp., 620 S.W.2d 547, 551 (Tex. 1981) (“[T]he Legislature
is never presumed to do a useless act.”). That is not the case. As already
observed, subsection (b) could be read to foreclose the direct mandamus
actions in this Court against constitutional executive officers
contemplated by Sharp. Whether or not it goes that far, there is no
question that subsection (b) provides clarity on an important and
muddled question the statute previously left unaddressed—where
petitioners should file the PIA mandamus actions authorized by
subsection (a). Unlike most lawsuits, mandamus petitions may
originate at all three levels of our court system. A mandamus petition
initiates an original action in the court in which it is filed, and as a
colloquial matter mandamus petitions are often more associated with
appellate courts rather than with district courts. It would therefore
come as no surprise—and would certainly not be superfluous or
redundant—for the Legislature to specify that these mandamus
petitions, authorized by section 552.321(a), must originate in district
court, rather than leaving it to litigants and courts to divine such a rule
from the pre-existing legal landscape.

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The Legislature’s provision of clarity and specificity is generally
a welcome feature of a user-friendly statutory scheme. Legislative
clarity and specificity should not lightly be confused for superfluity or
redundancy. When the Legislature spells out the rules governing a
cause of action, such as by providing a venue rule, the canon against
superfluity does not require us to ask whether, in the absence of the
legislative venue rule, the pre-existing law would have required the
same rule—and then to assign an alternative meaning to the statutory
venue rule, beyond the natural meaning of its text, in a quest to avoid
superfluity. Like any canon of construction, the presumption against
“useless acts” is merely one tool, among many, to be used in service of
the overriding goal, which is to understand the meaning of the statutory
text, within its context, as would an ordinary reader of English. See
Malouf v. State ex rels. Ellis, 694 S.W.3d 712, 718 (Tex. 2024) (“We . . .
apply the common, ordinary meaning” of a “statute’s text,” “constru[ing]
the words in light of their statutory context . . . .”). Stretching the text
beyond its natural meaning to avoid perceived superfluity or
redundancy is just as misguided as stretching the text beyond its
natural meaning for any other reason.
Finally, American Oversight suggests that if the State’s
arguments prevail, then constitutional executive officers and their state
agencies will be able to violate the PIA with impunity. That is not so.
The PIA contains abundant criminal penalties. To take one capacious
example, “[a]n officer for public information, or the officer’s agent,
commits an offense if, with criminal negligence, the officer or the officer’s
agent fails or refuses to give access to, or to permit or provide copying

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of, public information to a requestor as provided by this chapter.” TEX.
GOV’T CODE § 552.353(a). There are also civil remedies beyond the
mandamus action at issue here. Section 552.3215 authorizes parties
like American Oversight to “file a complaint alleging a violation of this
chapter.” Id. § 552.3215(e). If the governmental body is a state agency,
the complaint may be filed with the Travis County district attorney, who
then has thirty days to decide whether a violation of the PIA was
committed and to decide whether to initiate an action for declaratory or
injunctive relief. Id. § 552.3215(e), (g)(1). The district attorney must
inform the complainant in writing of these determinations. Id.
§ 552.3215(g)(2).
American Oversight objects that this pathway makes civil
litigation of its allegations contingent on the agreement of the Travis
County district attorney to take up the mantle. It does. But that
requirement hardly diminishes the incentive of state officials, who face
the prospect of both criminal and civil liability at the hands of the Travis
County district attorney, to comply in good faith with the PIA. American
Oversight is correct, of course, that its reading of the statutory scheme
would maximize the ability of private litigants to unilaterally enforce
the PIA against constitutional executive officers through civil litigation.
We are under no obligation, of course, to maximize the scope of the PIA’s
remedies. Our job is to understand what those remedies are, as the
Legislature has written them. “Liberally construed” or otherwise, the
words of section 552.321 do not support the remedy American Oversight
seeks. See id. § 552.001(a). If that result is thought to be undesirable,
the Legislature may of course provide otherwise.

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III.
For these reasons, the district court lacks jurisdiction over the
petitions for writ of mandamus against the Governor and the Attorney
General. Without reaching any other issues, we reverse the judgment
of the court of appeals and remand the case to the district court for
dismissal.

James D. Blacklock
Chief Justice

OPINION DELIVERED: June 27, 2025

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