Texas Attorney General Opinion: JM-238 Page: 2 of 6
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Honorable John B. Holmes, Jr. -. Page 2 (JM-238)
dispute over whether some of these individuals were authorized to
attend these executive sessions prompted your questions.
Attorney General Opinion JM-6 (1983) established that the members
of a governmental body may exclude non-members from its closed
meetings. You wish to know whether persons who have no right to
attend executive sessions may be admitted by the governmental body.
The Open Meetings Act, article 6252-17, V.T.C.S., provides in
relevant part:
Sec. 2. (a) Escept as otherwise provided in
this Act or specifically permitted in the
Constitution, every . . . meeting or session of
every governmental body shall be open to the
public; and no closed or executive meeting or
session of any governmental body for any of the
purposes for which closed or executive meetings or
sessions are hereinafter authorized shall be
held. . .
(e) Private consultations between a govern-
mental body and its attorney are not permitted
except in those intances in which the body seeks
the attorney's adv-Lee with respect to pending or
contemplated litigation, settlement offers, and
matters where the duty of a public body's counsel
to his client, pursuant to the Code of
Professional Respoasibility of the State Bar of
Texas, clearly conflicts with this Act.
This act requires governmental bodies to open their meetings to
the general public, except for limited circumstances under which
executive sessions are alLowed. Your questions require us to
determine whether the admiss:Lon of some public officers and employees
to an executive session convened under section 2(e) is consistent with
the policy of openness underlying the act. Since your question is
limited to sessions convena.d under section 2(e), the "litigation
exception," our conclusions till also be limited to that issue.
Section 2(e) could be in.rterpreted to authorize only the members
of a governmental body and its attorney to attend executive sessions
held thereunder. The provision refers to "[p]rivate consultations
between a governmental bocy and its attorney." The underlined
language could be read to permit attendance at the executive session
only by members of the governmental body and a single attorney toadvise them. Under such a construction, neither party would be
p. 1069
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: JM-238, text, December 3, 1984; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth272678/m1/2/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.