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OldAg wrote:

AJSully421 wrote:I had occasion to talk to so someone on the AG's 30.06 complaint team and asked them why it took so long to get this stuff going. He said that they had to build this thing from the ground up. All that the legislature said was that the AG's office was going to handle these complaints, but implementing and enacting this brand new delegated authority was a time-consuming matter.

He said that they had to have meeting after meeting about how to best follow the law and get results. They had to figure out what their legal authority was, and actually had to stop down and wait a couple of times while the AG's opinions on a couple of issues where that decision would apply to a certain situation. Then they had to decide how to properly apply that authority, create a process map, make assignments for the staff, and then, and only then, could they start handling complaints.

He also said that they have actually traveled to several places in the state to look at the buildings / rooms in question and how they are laid out to consult with the leaders of these towns and counties about how to accomplish keeping guns out of courtrooms and clerk's offices while allowing the rest of the building to be open for legal carry. He said that there has only been one so far that was being militant (He wouldn't tell me which one), and that the rest were sincerely concerned about striking a good balance between making sure that both they and us LTCers are following the law. In many cases, they have advised the location to post a sign such as "You are entering a courtroom / clerk's office and carry is prohibited here under TXPC 46.03(a)(3)."

There was much more to it than a meeting on September 1st where a few folks on the AG's staff were pointed at and told "You are now the 30.06 complaint team, now go get to work."

It was a great conversation.

I also spoke with one of their attorneys and part of the problem was with staffing. While the legislature created this workload, they did not increase the AG's staff proportionately. Additionally, I know that during the early months of the year, they lost at least one attorney that was working on several cases and all of those cases were piled onto another attorney that had his own list of complaints that he was researching. I agree that the staff member that I spoke with was conscientiously trying to address these issues as consistently and quickly as possible. I also thought it was a great conversation.