The Texas Legislature is mulling giving state agencies and other governmental entities the option of ignoring out-of-state open records requests.
It's too early to tell if the bill will pass, but if it does, Texas would join seven other states that have imposed limits on non-resident open-records requests.
So far, such restrictions have held up in court. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2013 that states don't violate the Constitution when their public records laws bar non-residents from obtaining government records.
Out-of-state media outlets would be most obviously affected by the proposed law, but advocates say ordinary citizens would also see governmental transparency curtailed.
Bill sponsor Republican Rep. Mike Schofield was a longtime legal adviser to ex-Gov. Rick Perry, whose office destroyed staff emails after a week.
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