ACCEPTED 15-24-00061-CV FIFTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS AUSTIN, TEXAS 6/2/2025 10:39 AM CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE June 2, 2025 CLERK FILED IN 15th COURT OF APPEALS AUSTIN, TEXAS Via ECF 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM Christopher A. Prine, Clerk CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE Clerk Fifteenth Court of Appeals William P. Clements Building 300 W. 15th Street, Suite 607 Austin, Texas 78701
Re: Nos. 15-24-00061-CV, 15-24-00120-CV; State of Texas v. Harris County, Texas, et al., in the Fifteenth Court of Appeals, Austin, Texas
Dear Mr. Prine:
This letter relates to a recent Supreme Court decision that might inform this Court’s decisions in the two separate appeals listed above. Paxton v. Annunciation House, Inc., 2025 WL 1536224 (Tex. May 30, 2025). Please forward it to Chief Justice Brister, Justice Field, and Justice Farris.
Contemporaneous legislation confirms original understanding. These two appeals concern Harris County’s Uplift Harris program and Community Prosperity Program. Each program, temporarily enjoined, seeks to deploy federal funds to support the County’s poor residents. Harris County argues that the 1876 Constitution was not originally understood to prohibit such poor relief.
Annunciation House supports this argument. There, the Supreme Court reviewed English, early American, and Texan quo warranto practices. Id. at *3-5. It then concluded that a statute—largely copying the constitutional text and enacted six months after ratification—“confirms” how the 1876 Constitution was “originally understood.” Id. at *6. The Court explained: “Legislative construction and contemporaneous exposition of a constitutional provision is of substantial value in constitutional interpretation.” Id. (quoting Am. Indem. Co. v. City of Austin, 246 S.W. 1019, 1023 (Tex. 1922)). “Importantly,” the Court noted, “the statute also tracked the Anglo-American quo warranto practice” prior to ratification. Id. Thus, the Legislature “provided important context” on the meaning of the Constitution via a statute enacted shortly after ratification. Id. at *7.
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That same line of argument applies with respect to the original understanding of the constitutionality of poor relief. English, early American, and Texan practices prior to 1876 show that relief to the poor was understood as a government function serving a public purpose, not as a private gift. See Appellees’ Br. 39-47, No. 15-24- 00120-CV; Appellees’ Br. 46-52, No. 15-24-00061-CV.
At the same time the 1876 Constitution prohibited the Legislature from permitting any county “to grant public money or thing of value, in aid of any individual,” it expressly contemplated that “paupers” would permissibly be “supported by” counties. Tex. Const. art. III, § 52; Tex. Const. of 1876 art. VI, § 1 (repealed Nov. 4, 1997) (disenfranchising “All paupers supported by any county”); see id. art. XI, § 2; id. art. XVI, § 8. Then, five months after ratification, the Legislature enacted a statute copying the same terms as the constitutional text; it empowered and required counties “To provide for the support of paupers[.]” 1
That term “support,” as used in the Constitution and statute, “means more than supplying them with food and clothing and a house to stay in. It means all that is necessary to bodily health and comfort.” Monghon v. Van Zandt County, 1886 WL 4550, at *1 (Tex. Ct. App. 1886, no writ). And counties’ commissioners courts were openly providing cash assistance to poor residents as “support” in the years immediately following the ratification. See Appellees’ Br. 48, No. 15-24-00120-CV.
Thus, just as in Annunciation House, these contemporaneous legislative constructions and expositions—the statute and counties’ cash assistance—tracked the constitutional text and centuries of Anglo-American and Texan practices. They confirm the original understanding of the 1876 Constitution: “support” for the poor was a public duty and permissible governmental function, not a prohibited private “grant” to individuals. See Annunciation House, 2025 WL 1536224, at *6.
The Attorney General lacked authority to represent the State in the district court. Annunciation House also reinforces the Attorney General’s lack of authority to represent the State in the district court. See Appellees’ Br. 16-30, No. 15-24-00120-CV. “Asked to decide a constitutional provision’s scope, [courts] begin with its text.” Annunciation House, 2025 WL 1536224, at *9.
1 Act approved July 22, 1876, 15th Leg., R.S., ch. 55, § 4, 1876 Tex. Gen. Laws 51, 52, reprinted in 8 H.P.N. Gammel, The Laws of Texas 1822-1897, at 887, 888 (Austin, Gammel Book Co. 1898). -3- June 2, 2025
Whatever the Attorney General’s authority—common-law 2 or otherwise—to represent the State in district courts before the 1876 Constitution, the plain text of that Constitution generally deprived him of that power: The Attorney General shall represent the State in all suits and pleas in the Supreme Court of the State in which the State may be a party . . . .
The County Attorneys shall represent the State in all cases in the District and inferior courts in their respective counties; but if any county shall be included in a district in which there shall be a District Attorney, the respective duties of District Attorneys and County Attorneys shall in such counties be regulated by the Legislature. Tex. Const. art. IV, § 22; Tex. Const. art. V, § 21 (emphasis added). Outside of inapplicable, narrow exceptions expressed in constitutional and statutory text, this clear language excludes the Attorney General from representing the State in the district courts: the county attorneys have the exclusive authority in “all cases.”
Annunciation House relied on multiple Supreme Court opinions confirming that this plain text means the county attorneys’ authority in the district courts is exclusive. It cited the page in Maud v. Terrell that includes this point:
[The Constitution,] by Section 21 of Article 5, lodges with the county attorneys the duty of representing the State in all cases in the district and inferior courts . . . ; and by Section 22 of Article 4 that duty as to suits and pleas in the Supreme Court is confided to the Attorney-General. With the limitation existing in the authority of the Legislature, under Section 22 of Article 4, to create additional causes of action in favor of the State and intrust their prosecution . . . solely to the Attorney-General, the powers thus conferred by the Constitution upon these officials are exclusive.
2 Annunciation House began by discussing “eight centuries” of quo warranto practice and cases showing that attorney generals’ authority to bring suit to revoke corporate charters was declared as “the common law of the land” in the United States. 2025 WL 1536224, at *3-7 (quoting Terrett v. Taylor, 13 U.S. (9 Cranch) 43, 51 (1815)). That rich history contrasts significantly with this case, where the Attorney General has not provided cases showing that, in 1840, the “English common law as declared by the courts of the different states of the United States” included attorneys general’s authority to sue local governments in ultra vires suits on behalf of the State. See Grigsby v. Reib, 153 S.W. 1124, 1125 (Tex. 1913) (construing statute adopting common-law). -4- June 2, 2025
Maud v. Terrell, 200 S.W. 375, 376 (Tex. 1918) (emphasis added); see Annunciation House, 2025 WL 1536224 at *11 (citing Maud, 200 S.W. at 376-77).
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ACCEPTED 15-24-00061-CV FIFTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS AUSTIN, TEXAS 6/2/2025 10:39 AM CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE June 2, 2025 CLERK FILED IN 15th COURT OF APPEALS AUSTIN, TEXAS Via ECF 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM Christopher A. Prine, Clerk CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE Clerk Fifteenth Court of Appeals William P. Clements Building 300 W. 15th Street, Suite 607 Austin, Texas 78701
Re: Nos. 15-24-00061-CV, 15-24-00120-CV; State of Texas v. Harris County, Texas, et al., in the Fifteenth Court of Appeals, Austin, Texas
Dear Mr. Prine:
This letter relates to a recent Supreme Court decision that might inform this Court’s decisions in the two separate appeals listed above. Paxton v. Annunciation House, Inc., 2025 WL 1536224 (Tex. May 30, 2025). Please forward it to Chief Justice Brister, Justice Field, and Justice Farris.
Contemporaneous legislation confirms original understanding. These two appeals concern Harris County’s Uplift Harris program and Community Prosperity Program. Each program, temporarily enjoined, seeks to deploy federal funds to support the County’s poor residents. Harris County argues that the 1876 Constitution was not originally understood to prohibit such poor relief.
Annunciation House supports this argument. There, the Supreme Court reviewed English, early American, and Texan quo warranto practices. Id. at *3-5. It then concluded that a statute—largely copying the constitutional text and enacted six months after ratification—“confirms” how the 1876 Constitution was “originally understood.” Id. at *6. The Court explained: “Legislative construction and contemporaneous exposition of a constitutional provision is of substantial value in constitutional interpretation.” Id. (quoting Am. Indem. Co. v. City of Austin, 246 S.W. 1019, 1023 (Tex. 1922)). “Importantly,” the Court noted, “the statute also tracked the Anglo-American quo warranto practice” prior to ratification. Id. Thus, the Legislature “provided important context” on the meaning of the Constitution via a statute enacted shortly after ratification. Id. at *7.
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That same line of argument applies with respect to the original understanding of the constitutionality of poor relief. English, early American, and Texan practices prior to 1876 show that relief to the poor was understood as a government function serving a public purpose, not as a private gift. See Appellees’ Br. 39-47, No. 15-24- 00120-CV; Appellees’ Br. 46-52, No. 15-24-00061-CV.
At the same time the 1876 Constitution prohibited the Legislature from permitting any county “to grant public money or thing of value, in aid of any individual,” it expressly contemplated that “paupers” would permissibly be “supported by” counties. Tex. Const. art. III, § 52; Tex. Const. of 1876 art. VI, § 1 (repealed Nov. 4, 1997) (disenfranchising “All paupers supported by any county”); see id. art. XI, § 2; id. art. XVI, § 8. Then, five months after ratification, the Legislature enacted a statute copying the same terms as the constitutional text; it empowered and required counties “To provide for the support of paupers[.]” 1
That term “support,” as used in the Constitution and statute, “means more than supplying them with food and clothing and a house to stay in. It means all that is necessary to bodily health and comfort.” Monghon v. Van Zandt County, 1886 WL 4550, at *1 (Tex. Ct. App. 1886, no writ). And counties’ commissioners courts were openly providing cash assistance to poor residents as “support” in the years immediately following the ratification. See Appellees’ Br. 48, No. 15-24-00120-CV.
Thus, just as in Annunciation House, these contemporaneous legislative constructions and expositions—the statute and counties’ cash assistance—tracked the constitutional text and centuries of Anglo-American and Texan practices. They confirm the original understanding of the 1876 Constitution: “support” for the poor was a public duty and permissible governmental function, not a prohibited private “grant” to individuals. See Annunciation House, 2025 WL 1536224, at *6.
The Attorney General lacked authority to represent the State in the district court. Annunciation House also reinforces the Attorney General’s lack of authority to represent the State in the district court. See Appellees’ Br. 16-30, No. 15-24-00120-CV. “Asked to decide a constitutional provision’s scope, [courts] begin with its text.” Annunciation House, 2025 WL 1536224, at *9.
1 Act approved July 22, 1876, 15th Leg., R.S., ch. 55, § 4, 1876 Tex. Gen. Laws 51, 52, reprinted in 8 H.P.N. Gammel, The Laws of Texas 1822-1897, at 887, 888 (Austin, Gammel Book Co. 1898). -3- June 2, 2025
Whatever the Attorney General’s authority—common-law 2 or otherwise—to represent the State in district courts before the 1876 Constitution, the plain text of that Constitution generally deprived him of that power: The Attorney General shall represent the State in all suits and pleas in the Supreme Court of the State in which the State may be a party . . . .
The County Attorneys shall represent the State in all cases in the District and inferior courts in their respective counties; but if any county shall be included in a district in which there shall be a District Attorney, the respective duties of District Attorneys and County Attorneys shall in such counties be regulated by the Legislature. Tex. Const. art. IV, § 22; Tex. Const. art. V, § 21 (emphasis added). Outside of inapplicable, narrow exceptions expressed in constitutional and statutory text, this clear language excludes the Attorney General from representing the State in the district courts: the county attorneys have the exclusive authority in “all cases.”
Annunciation House relied on multiple Supreme Court opinions confirming that this plain text means the county attorneys’ authority in the district courts is exclusive. It cited the page in Maud v. Terrell that includes this point:
[The Constitution,] by Section 21 of Article 5, lodges with the county attorneys the duty of representing the State in all cases in the district and inferior courts . . . ; and by Section 22 of Article 4 that duty as to suits and pleas in the Supreme Court is confided to the Attorney-General. With the limitation existing in the authority of the Legislature, under Section 22 of Article 4, to create additional causes of action in favor of the State and intrust their prosecution . . . solely to the Attorney-General, the powers thus conferred by the Constitution upon these officials are exclusive.
2 Annunciation House began by discussing “eight centuries” of quo warranto practice and cases showing that attorney generals’ authority to bring suit to revoke corporate charters was declared as “the common law of the land” in the United States. 2025 WL 1536224, at *3-7 (quoting Terrett v. Taylor, 13 U.S. (9 Cranch) 43, 51 (1815)). That rich history contrasts significantly with this case, where the Attorney General has not provided cases showing that, in 1840, the “English common law as declared by the courts of the different states of the United States” included attorneys general’s authority to sue local governments in ultra vires suits on behalf of the State. See Grigsby v. Reib, 153 S.W. 1124, 1125 (Tex. 1913) (construing statute adopting common-law). -4- June 2, 2025
Maud v. Terrell, 200 S.W. 375, 376 (Tex. 1918) (emphasis added); see Annunciation House, 2025 WL 1536224 at *11 (citing Maud, 200 S.W. at 376-77). So, Maud held that, with limited exceptions, the Constitution’s conferring power upon the county attorneys to represent the State in the district court was exclusive.
Annunciation House itself discussed this same exclusivity principle:
[In] International & Great Northern Railroad Co. . . . we held that Article IV, § 22 was sufficiently protective of the attorney general’s quo warranto authority as to make it exclusive. Thus, even if district or county attorneys may invoke quo warranto for some purposes, the legislature may not authorize them (or anyone other than the attorney general) to do so for investigating corporate malfeasance.
Annunciation House, 2025 WL 1536224, at *11 (citing State v. Int’l & Great N. Ry., 35 S.W. 1067, 1068-69 (Tex. 1896)) (emphasis added); see id. (not reaffirming or contextualizing prior decision).
At the pages cited of International & Great Northern Railroad, the Supreme Court had reaffirmed the exclusivity point, originally made in State v. Moore:
“It must be presumed that the constitution, in selecting the depositaries of a given power, unless it be otherwise expressed, intended that the depositary should exercise an exclusive power, with which the legislature could not interfere by appointing some other officer to the exercise of the power.” We are of the opinion that the conferring upon the attorney general of the specific authority . . . evidences an intent to make such authority exclusive in such officer . . . .
Int’l & Great N., 35 S.W. at 1068 (quoting State v. Moore, 57 Tex. 307, 314 (1882) (by Justice Stayton, a participant in the 1875 convention)) (emphasis added).
Thus, outside of narrow constitutional and statutory carveouts, the Constitution’s conferring upon the county attorneys the power to represent the State in the district court in “all cases” excludes the Attorney General from exercising that same power. Annunciation House and the exact pages of the cases it cites support this proposition.
Harris County respectfully asks that the Court affirm. -5- June 2, 2025
Sincerely,
Grant B. Martinez Counsel for Appellees
cc: Via ECF Benjamin Wallace Mendelson Assistant Solicitor General Ben.Mendelson@oag.texas.gov Office of the Attorney General Counsel for Appellant Automated Certificate of eService This automated certificate of service was created by the efiling system. The filer served this document via email generated by the efiling system on the date and to the persons listed below. The rules governing certificates of service have not changed. Filers must still provide a certificate of service that complies with all applicable rules.
Grant Martinez on behalf of Grant Martinez Bar No. 24104118 gmartinez@yettercoleman.com Envelope ID: 101487757 Filing Code Description: Letter Filing Description: Letter to Court re Annunciation House Status as of 6/2/2025 10:46 AM CST
Associated Case Party: State of Texas
Name BarNumber Email TimestampSubmitted Status
Ben Mendelson Ben.Mendelson@oag.texas.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Case Contacts
Name BarNumber Email TimestampSubmitted Status
Delonda Dean ddean@yettercoleman.com 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Grant Martinez 24104118 gmartinez@yettercoleman.com 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Athena Leyton athena.leyton@oag.texas.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Lily Hann 24133836 Lhann@yettercoleman.com 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Toni Shah toni.shah@oag.texas.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Yetter Coleman efile@yettercoleman.com 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Ryan Cooper ryan.cooper@harriscountytx.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
William Farrell biff.farrell@oag.texas.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Andrea Mintzer Andrea.Mintzer@harriscountytx.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Eleanor Matheson Eleanor.matheson@harriscountytx.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Nicole Myette nicole.myette@oag.texas.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Jonathan Fombonne jonathan.fombonne@harriscountytx.gov 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Grant Martinez gmartinez@yettercoleman.com 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Edward Swidriski Edward.Swidriski@harriscountytx.go 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Associated Case Party: Harris County, Texas
Name BarNumber Email TimestampSubmitted Status Automated Certificate of eService This automated certificate of service was created by the efiling system. The filer served this document via email generated by the efiling system on the date and to the persons listed below. The rules governing certificates of service have not changed. Filers must still provide a certificate of service that complies with all applicable rules.
Grant Martinez on behalf of Grant Martinez Bar No. 24104118 gmartinez@yettercoleman.com Envelope ID: 101487757 Filing Code Description: Letter Filing Description: Letter to Court re Annunciation House Status as of 6/2/2025 10:46 AM CST
Associated Case Party: Harris County, Texas
Name BarNumber Email TimestampSubmitted Status
Grant Martinez 24104118 gmartinez@yettercoleman.com 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT
Lily Hann 24133836 Lhann@yettercoleman.com 6/2/2025 10:39:25 AM SENT