Texas clerks look to derail web-based public access to court records

2017-01-31T14:55:50-06:00

By Ryan Autullo Austin American-Statesman Originally published Jan. 30, 2017 Texas court clerks are resisting a state proposal they say would strip them of their constitutional authority by making court documents available online for easy public access. The statewide database, re:SearchTX, holds records from all 254 counties and is backed by the state’s Supreme Court. It currently is used by judges and soon will be available to attorneys and the public — who could search for civil court records and review them, all from the comfort of home. Clerks say surrendering these records to a privately operated database would violate their role [...]