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The Honorable Tim Curry - Page 2
comments section of the meeting is reached. Topics are usually
entirely at the discretion of the speaker.
Letter from Honorable Tim Curry, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney, to Honorable
John Cornyn, Texas Attorney General, at 3 (Aug. 6, 1999) (on file with Opinion Committee).
Prior to 1987, a "meeting" under the Open Meetings Act was defined to require a
"deliberation" between the members of a governmental body. Thus, members of a governmental
body could meet privately to receive information from and ask questions of their employees or of
third parties, so long as they did not discuss any public business among themselves. See Dallas
Morning News Co. v. Board of Trustees, 861 S.W.2d 532 (Tex. App.-Dallas 1993, writ denied). In
1987, the definition of "meeting" was amended to include any deliberation "between a quorum of
members of a governmental body and any other person" at which public business or policy is
discussed or at which formal action is taken. Act of May 31, 1987, 70th Leg., R.S., ch. 549, 1,
1987 Tex. Gen. Laws 2211. The definition of "deliberation" was simultaneously amended to
include a "verbal exchange during a meeting . . between a quorum of members of a governmental
body and any other person." Id.
In Dallas Morning News Co., the court found that:
a briefing session with third parties where the public is excluded and
the governmental body does not engage in a verbal exchange with
representatives of the third party or engage in verbal exchange
between its own members about the issue within its jurisdiction or
any other public business, is not a deliberation as defined by the Act.
Therefore, there is not a meeting as defined by the Act.
Dallas Morning News Co., 861 S.W.2d at 537. Thus, between 1987 and 1999, when a quorum of
a governmental body met to listen in silence to a briefing by a third party, that gathering did not fall
within the definition of "meeting" and was hence not subject to the Open Meetings Act.
Consequently, from 1987 to 1999, a governmental body could hold a "public comment" session
without providing specific notice of the topics to be discussed, on the ground that, so long as its
members merely listened, the gathering was not a "meeting."
In its most recent session, the legislature once again amended the definition of "meeting"
to provide:
(A) a deliberation between a quorum of a governmental body,
or between a quorum of a governmental body and another person,
during which public business or public policy over which the
governmental body has supervision or control is discussed or
considered or during which the governmental body takes formal
action; or
(JC-0 169)
