Express-Statement Requirement for Limiting the Texas Attorney General’s Quo Warranto Power: Commentary on Paxton v. Annunciation House

Express-Statement Requirement for Limiting the Texas Attorney General’s Quo Warranto Power: Commentary on Paxton v. Annunciation House

I. Introduction

The Supreme Court of Texas’s decision in Warren Kenneth Paxton, Jr., in his Official Capacity as Texas Attorney General, and the State of Texas v. Annunciation House, Inc. is a major separation-of-powers and remedial-law decision that arises from a politically and morally charged factual context: a Catholic-affiliated immigrant shelter on the El Paso border, accused by the Attorney General (AG) of unlawfully “harboring” undocumented migrants.

Formally, the case is not about immigration policy or religious liberty on the merits. It is about who gets to decide those issues and when courts may stop the Attorney General from even filing a case. Substantively, the Court:

  • Reaffirms and expands the Attorney General’s constitutionally grounded power to bring quo warranto proceedings against corporations, including on the basis of alleged criminal violations;
  • Announces a robust express-statement rule: the Legislature can limit this quo warranto authority only when it does so “expressly” as required by Tex. Const. art. IV, § 22;
  • Clarifies the very low standard for granting leave to file a quo warranto information (a pleadings-based “probable ground” standard, not an evidentiary mini-trial);
  • Holds that Texas’s alien-harboring statute may be used as a predicate for such a quo warranto action, is not preempted by federal law, and is not unconstitutionally vague as applied here;
  • Restricts how and when the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) can be used procedurally: it cannot be invoked at this early stage to prevent the AG from even filing his case;
  • Construes Texas’s corporate-records inspection statute in a way that supplies the “precompliance review” required by the Fourth Amendment under City of Los Angeles v. Patel, thereby saving the statute from facial invalidation.

The Court simultaneously vacates an expansive injunction that (1) barred the AG from making further records requests to Annunciation House and (2) blocked him from even filing a quo warranto action. It admonishes the trial court for both misapplying the law and for harsh rhetoric that failed to respect the Attorney General as a coordinate constitutional officer.

This commentary first outlines the background and holdings, then analyzes the Court’s legal reasoning, precedents, and the likely impact of this decision on Texas public law, religious ministries, and immigration-related litigation.

II. Background and Procedural Posture

A. The Parties and Factual Setting

Annunciation House is a long-standing Catholic-affiliated nonprofit in El Paso that operates shelters for migrants and the homeless. Its mission is explicitly religious: to serve the poor and migrants in collaboration with the Roman Catholic Diocese of El Paso, regardless of immigration status.

In February 2024, state officials, acting under Texas Business Organizations Code §§ 12.151–.152, served a written “Request to Examine” Annunciation House’s records, insisting on immediate production on pain of:

  • Forfeiture of the corporation’s right to do business in Texas, and
  • Criminal penalties.

Annunciation House sought time to consult counsel and respond; the AG’s office insisted on next-day compliance. Annunciation House then filed suit in district court, seeking:

  • A temporary restraining order (TRO) and injunction against the records request; and
  • Declaratory relief that the request and/or underlying statutes were unconstitutional.

B. District-Court Proceedings

Over time, the dispute evolved significantly:

  • The trial court initially granted a TRO and later ruled that going forward, records production would be governed by ordinary civil discovery rules, mooting the initial emergency.
  • The AG initially grounded his counterclaim on Annunciation House’s refusal to comply with the records request.
  • In amended pleadings, the AG alleged that Annunciation House was operating as an:
    • “illegal alien harboring” operation and
    • “stash house” in violation of Texas Penal Code §§ 20.05(a)(2), 20.07(a)(1).
  • Based on those allegations, the AG:
    • Sought leave to file a quo warranto counterclaim to revoke Annunciation House’s corporate charter under Civil Practice & Remedies Code ch. 66; and
    • Requested injunctive relief to halt the shelter’s operations.

The trial court granted Annunciation House’s summary-judgment motion in full, and:

  1. Held the records-inspection statute (Bus. Org. Code §§ 12.151–.152) facially unconstitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments, and as religious harassment under the “Save Chick-fil-A” law (Tex. Gov’t Code § 2400.002).
  2. Enjoined further records requests unless first submitted to that court for “precompliance review” for two years.
  3. Denied the AG’s request for a temporary injunction and denied leave to file the quo warranto counterclaim, on multiple grounds:
    • That Bus. Org. Code § 11.301(a)(5) supplanted the AG’s quo warranto authority regarding criminal conduct;
    • That the AG failed to allege valid violations of Penal Code §§ 20.05(a)(2) and 20.07(a)(1);
    • That those penal provisions were:
      • Preempted by federal immigration law (field and conflict preemption); and
      • Unconstitutionally vague as applied to Annunciation House;
    • That RFRA (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 110) barred the AG’s requested quo warranto claim and injunction as an impermissible burden on religious exercise;
    • That quo warranto itself (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 66.001) would be unconstitutionally vague as applied.

A later order disposed of remaining claims and produced a final judgment.

C. Direct Appeal to the Texas Supreme Court

Because the trial court’s rulings rested on constitutional holdings and the grant/denial of injunctions, the AG appealed directly to the Supreme Court of Texas under Tex. Gov’t Code § 22.001(c) and Tex. R. App. P. 57.

The Court noted probable jurisdiction as to five trial-court rulings:

  1. That Bus. Org. Code § 11.301(a)(5) abrogates the AG’s quo warranto authority;
  2. That the AG failed to adequately allege violations of Penal Code §§ 20.05(a)(2) or 20.07(a)(1);
  3. That those Penal Code provisions are either vague as applied or preempted by federal law;
  4. That the AG’s requested injunction and quo warranto action violate RFRA;
  5. That Bus. Org. Code §§ 12.151–.152 are facially unconstitutional for lack of precompliance review.

The Court emphasizes that the only question before it on quo warranto is whether the AG may file an information in the nature of quo warranto—not whether Annunciation House actually violated criminal law or whether its charter should ultimately be revoked.

III. Summary of the Opinion

Justice Young, writing for the Court (Justice Sullivan not participating), reaches three core outcomes:

  1. Quo warranto authority affirmed and extended:
    • The AG has constitutional authority under Tex. Const. art. IV, § 22 to bring quo warranto actions against private corporations, including those based on alleged criminal-law violations.
    • This authority can be limited only by express legislative direction (“unless otherwise expressly directed by law”).
    • Bus. Org. Code § 11.301(a)(5) does not expressly supplant or limit quo warranto; Civil Practice & Remedies Code ch. 66 does not exclude criminal predicates.
    • The AG’s pleadings allege sufficient “probable ground” under § 66.002(d) to justify leave to file the information.
  2. Alien-harboring statute preserved as a predicate and upheld against preemption and vagueness challenges:
    • The Court agrees with the Fifth Circuit’s Cruz v. Abbott interpretation that Texas “harboring” requires conduct beyond merely providing shelter—it must involve concealment or shielding from detection.
    • Taking the AG’s allegations as true at the leave-to-file stage (intentional shielding from law enforcement, refusal to allow entry, etc.), they could describe unlawful harboring and thus support quo warranto.
    • Penal Code §§ 20.05(a)(2) and 20.07(a)(1) are neither field- nor conflict-preempted by federal law, given their close parallel to 8 U.S.C. § 1324 and the federal saving clause in § 1324(c).
    • Those provisions are not unconstitutionally vague as applied in this context.
  3. Records-inspection statute saved; injunction vacated:
    • The dispute over the AG’s records request is not moot, despite the AG’s claim that he had abandoned the request.
    • Applying City of Los Angeles v. Patel, the Court holds that Business Organizations Code §§ 12.151–.152 can—and must—be read to allow precompliance review (via Tex. R. Civ. P. 176.6 protective orders), rendering them facially constitutional.
    • The trial court’s permanent injunction requiring the AG to submit any future records request to that court for two years is vacated as based on legal error and is flagged as “extraordinary” in scope.
    • The trial court’s reliance on the “Save Chick-fil-A” law (§ 2400.002) is rejected: the record showed no evidence that the AG was targeting Annunciation House because of its Catholic identity.

RFRA is acknowledged but left for another day: the Court holds only that RFRA cannot be used at this pre-filing stage to block the AG from filing the quo warranto information; it does not resolve how RFRA will operate once factual development occurs.

IV. Detailed Analysis

A. Historical and Constitutional Foundations of Quo Warranto

The Court devotes a substantial historical section to quo warranto, tracing it from:

  • Medieval English roots under Edward I as a royal tool to challenge feudal “franchises” (special privileges and rights);
  • Development into a civil “information in the nature of quo warranto” filed by the Attorney General in the King’s Bench;
  • Application to private corporations—as entities whose existence and powers derive from state-granted charters—subject to forfeiture for “misuser or nonuser” (misuse or non-use of corporate privileges) (Blackstone, Story, Taney);
  • Importation into Texas through the 1840 adoption of the common law of England, and early Republic and state cases (State v. Southern Pac. R.R. Co., Banton v. Wilson);
  • Codification and constitutionalization in the 1876 Texas Constitution.

Crucial is Tex. Const. art. IV, § 22, which:

  • Expressly charges the AG to “inquire into the charter rights of all private corporations”;
  • Requires him to “take such action in the courts as may be proper and necessary to prevent any private corporation from exercising any power … not authorized by law”;
  • Commands that “whenever sufficient cause exists” he “shall … seek a judicial forfeiture of such charters, unless otherwise expressly directed by law.”

The Court reads this as:

  • Constitutionalizing the common-law quo warranto remedy in Texas;
  • Making the AG’s power and duty to pursue charter forfeitures baseline constitutional law rather than a mere statutory grant;
  • Embedding a clear-statement rule (“unless otherwise expressly directed”) that tightly cabins the Legislature’s ability to limit that power by implication.

That historical and constitutional grounding frames the rest of the opinion: the AG’s quo warranto authority is the default rule, and any legislative attempt to displace it must be unmistakably clear.

B. Scope of the Attorney General’s Quo Warranto Power

1. Criminal-law predicates and Article IV, § 22

Annunciation House argued that the AG’s constitutional quo warranto authority does not extend to predicate criminal violations; instead, it claimed that art. IV, § 22 is confined to rate regulation and similar economic abuses (taxes, tolls, freight, wharfage).

The Court rejects this as textually and historically untenable:

  • Textually, art. IV, § 22 covers preventing any corporation from “exercising any power or demanding or collecting any species of … taxes, tolls, freight or wharfage not authorized by law.”
  • Using the series-qualifier canon, the phrase “not authorized by law” modifies each listed object separately; “exercising any power not authorized by law” is an independent ground, not limited by the references to tolls and taxes.
  • Historically, numerous 19th- and early 20th-century state cases held that criminal law violations by a corporation could constitute “exercise of powers not conferred by law” and thus support charter forfeiture by quo warranto.

The Court also reasons that, logically, criminal acts are quintessential examples of power “not authorized by law.” Thus:

Holding: Criminal acts are not categorically excluded as predicates for the AG’s quo warranto authority under Tex. Const. art. IV, § 22.

The Court prudently leaves open whether all criminal acts could serve as predicates, but squarely rejects the trial court’s categorical rule that criminal conduct can never ground quo warranto.

2. Does the Legislature define “sufficient cause” for quo warranto?

Annunciation House argued that the Legislature alone defines “sufficient cause” for charter forfeiture and that the AG cannot act absent a specific statutory declaration that certain conduct justifies forfeiture.

The Court, relying on State v. Teachers Annuity Life Insurance Co. (writ refused, hence binding), holds almost the opposite:

  • Art. IV, § 22 confers general authority on the AG to seek judicial forfeitures “whenever sufficient cause exists,” limited only when the Legislature expressly directs otherwise.
  • The AG has the power “to determine the existence of ‘sufficient cause’ ” (Teachers Annuity, adopted as precedent by writ refusal).
  • That discretion is consistent with the AG’s long-recognized role as the state’s chief legal officer with “multifarious” duties and broad judgment and discretion (Webster v. Commission for Lawyer Discipline, Terrazas v. Ramirez).

Thus, the Court affirms:

Holding: The AG’s discretion to decide when “sufficient cause exists” for a quo warranto action is constitutionally grounded and persists unless the Legislature expressly withdraws it in particular contexts.

3. Business Organizations Code § 11.301(a)(5)

Section 11.301(a)(5) authorizes judicial “winding up” and termination of a corporation based on:

  • Felony convictions of the entity or a high managerial agent,
  • A persistent course of felonious conduct, and
  • Necessity of termination to prevent future felonious conduct.

The trial court and Annunciation House read this as an implicit, exclusive pathway for dissolving corporations due to criminal behavior—thus displacing quo warranto in the criminal context.

The Court holds otherwise:

  • Section 11.301 nowhere mentions quo warranto, art. IV, § 22, or any limitation on the AG’s constitutional authority.
  • It therefore fails even the lesser canon requiring clarity for abrogating the common law, much less the constitutional clear-statement requirement (“unless otherwise expressly directed by law”).
  • Section 11.301 sits in a separate statutory framework focusing on the Secretary of State’s dissolution functions and mandatory termination in specific circumstances; it is not a substitute for, or limitation on, quo warranto.

Holding: Section 11.301(a)(5) does not supplant or limit the Attorney General’s quo warranto authority; both remedies coexist.

4. Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 66

Chapter 66 “prescribe[s] the remedy and regulate[s] the proceedings by quo warranto.” Section 66.001(4)–(5) authorizes quo warranto if:

  • A corporation does or omits an act that requires surrender or forfeiture of corporate rights, or
  • A corporation exercises a power “not granted by law.”

Annunciation House contended that, because the list doesn’t explicitly mention criminal acts, those acts cannot serve as predicates under the canon of expressio unius (the expression of one thing implies the exclusion of others).

The Court responds:

  • Section 66.001 is framed as authorizing actions, not as a limitation on the constitutional power.
  • Even if it were read to imply limits, the phrase “exercises power not granted by law” is virtually identical to art. IV, § 22’s “exercising any power … not authorized by law,” which the Court has already held does not exclude criminal predicates.
  • Thus, § 66.001(5) can include criminal acts that constitute exercises of ungranted powers.

Holding: Chapter 66 does not bar the AG from relying on alleged violations of the alien-harboring statute as a basis for quo warranto under § 66.001(4)–(5).

C. Standard for Granting Leave to File a Quo Warranto Information

The statutory requirement for granting leave is that “there is probable ground for the proceeding.” Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 66.002(d). The key question: is this a factual, evidentiary inquiry at the leave-to-file stage, or merely a pleading-based threshold?

Drawing on Hunnicutt v. State ex rel. Witt and appellate cases like State v. City of Double Horn and State ex rel. Manchac v. City of Orange, the Court holds:

  • Quo warranto informations are treated as civil suits subject to ordinary rules of civil practice.
  • At the leave stage, the court must accept as true the AG’s allegations and assess only whether the petition, on its face:
    • States a cause of action within Chapter 66’s categories, and
    • Is not foreclosed by some clear legal bar (e.g., lack of jurisdiction, express statutory prohibition, etc.).
  • “The Attorney General’s official statement, unsworn, [is] sufficient” to justify filing; factual merits are proven later.

Holding: The leave-to-file standard is a sufficiency-of-the-pleadings inquiry, not a merits adjudication. Courts must generally grant leave unless the petition fails, as a matter of law on its face, to state a basis for quo warranto.

This is a significant procedural holding: it sharply limits trial courts’ ability to front-load highly fact-bound defenses (like RFRA, preemption, or evidentiary disputes) into the leave-to-file decision. Those issues must be litigated through the normal civil process (motions to dismiss, summary judgment, trial), after the information is filed.

D. Application to Alleged Alien-Harboring by Annunciation House

1. Substantive construction of the Texas alien-harboring statute

Penal Code § 20.05(a)(2) criminalizes “encourag[ing] or induc[ing] a person to enter or remain in this country in violation of federal law by concealing, harboring, or shielding that person from detection.” Section 20.07 makes it an offense to use real property to commit a § 20.05 offense.

Both sides relied heavily on the Fifth Circuit’s Cruz v. Abbott, where the court (making an Erie guess) construed the Texas statute in light of parallel federal precedent (8 U.S.C. § 1324), holding:

  • “Harboring” requires “some level of covertness well beyond merely renting or providing a place to live.”
  • The law targets conduct that hides or shields persons from detection, not mere provision of shelter.

The Texas Supreme Court explicitly adopts that construction:

  • Mere provision of food, clothing, or shelter—even to undocumented migrants—is not a crime under § 20.05(a)(2).
  • The line, however, is crossed when there is purposeful concealment or shielding from detection by law enforcement.

Holding (statutory construction): Texas’s alien-harboring statute does not criminalize simple humanitarian aid or shelter; it requires purposefully concealing or shielding undocumented persons from detection.

2. Sufficiency of the AG’s allegations

Taking the AG’s pleadings as true, the Court reads them to allege that Annunciation House:

  • Provides shelter to individuals the organization knows to be unlawfully present;
  • Refuses to admit law enforcement into its shelters for the purpose of protecting such individuals from detection and removal;
  • Engages in a systematic practice intended to help those individuals evade detection.

Annunciation House characterizes the same conduct as lawful provision of shelter combined with assertion of Fourth Amendment rights, and stresses that Cruz forecloses criminalization of mere sheltering.

The Court responds that:

  • At this early stage, it cannot weigh competing factual narratives or resolve constitutional defenses like Fourth Amendment claims.
  • Assuming the AG’s allegations are true, they do describe conduct that plausibly falls on the “concealment” side of the line drawn in Cruz and under the statutory text.

Holding: The AG’s pleadings allege sufficient “probable ground” for violations of the alien-harboring statute; thus, they can support leave to file a quo warranto information.

Whether those facts are provable, and whether Annunciation House can successfully assert constitutional or RFRA defenses, remains entirely open on remand.

E. RFRA and the Timing of Religious-Liberty Defenses

Annunciation House argued—and the trial court agreed—that allowing the AG to seek charter forfeiture would:

  • Substantially burden its religious exercise (its Catholic mission to serve migrants);
  • Not be the least restrictive means of furthering any compelling state interest.

RFRA (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 110.003) applies when a “government agency” substantially burdens religious exercise; the government must then show that applying the burden to the person is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling interest.

The Supreme Court assumes, for argument’s sake, that RFRA applies in the quo warranto context but holds that the timing of the trial court’s RFRA ruling was wrong:

  • At the leave-to-file stage, the only “government action” at issue is filing the quo warranto case, not revoking the charter or shutting down operations.
  • RFRA is designed to be litigated on a developed factual record, with “granular” analysis of the specific burden and the specific state interest (see Barr v. City of Sinton, Gonzales v. O Centro).
  • Here, RFRA arguments focused on the ultimate remedy (closure of Annunciation House), not on whether the AG may file his pleadings.
  • To use RFRA to bar the AG from even initiating suit would convert the leave-to-file threshold into a premature merits ruling.

Holding: RFRA cannot be used at this preliminary stage to block the Attorney General from filing a quo warranto information; RFRA issues must be addressed later, once facts are developed and the procedural posture permits merits resolution.

The Court does, however, reaffirm that RFRA can support early injunctive relief in appropriate cases (e.g., Hensley v. State Commission on Judicial Conduct) when the factual record is sufficiently clear. It simply finds that this is not such a case yet.

F. Federal Preemption and Vagueness Challenges to the Alien-Harboring Statute

1. Field and conflict preemption

Annunciation House argued that Texas’s alien-harboring statute is:

  • Field preempted by the federal immigration scheme, particularly in light of Arizona v. United States, and
  • Conflict preempted by 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii), which criminalizes federal alien harboring.

The Court’s reasoning:

  • Field preemption:
    • One must identify the “field” claimed to be exclusively federal. Annunciation House’s claim is vague; the statute does not relate to alien registration or other areas specifically addressed in Arizona.
    • Supreme Court precedent (Kansas v. Garcia, De Canas v. Bica) rejects the notion that all state statutes “touching on” immigration are per se preempted.
    • Even within the “harboring” niche, another circuit (8th Cir. in Keller v. City of Fremont) has held the field not exclusively federal.
  • Conflict preemption – impossibility:
    • Texas’s statute and § 1324 both target unlawful harboring; they are closely parallel in language and scope.
    • Under Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, parallel state standards that closely track federal immigration law are less, not more, likely to be preempted.
    • It is not “physically impossible” to comply with both; rather, the same conduct may violate both regimes.
  • Conflict preemption – obstacle:
    • Obstacle-preemption analysis must focus on the statutory text, not high-level policy purposes.
    • Here, 8 U.S.C. § 1324 includes a saving clause (§ 1324(c)) expressly authorizing all “officers whose duty it is to enforce criminal laws” to arrest for violations—including state officers.
    • This undercuts any claim that Congress clearly and manifestly intended to exclude the states from parallel enforcement of harboring-type offenses.
    • Differences in DOJ or DHS enforcement priorities do not create Supremacy Clause conflicts (Kansas v. Garcia).

Holding: Texas’s alien-harboring provisions are neither field nor conflict preempted and can serve as lawful predicates for state enforcement, including quo warranto.

2. Vagueness (due course of law / due process)

Annunciation House also claimed that:

  • The term “harboring” is vague as applied, depriving it of fair notice under the Texas due-course clause (assumed coextensive with federal due process); and
  • Allowing the AG to invoke any criminal violation as a quasi-free-floating ground for quo warranto renders the regime a “standardless sweep,” inviting arbitrary enforcement (Kolender v. Lawson).

The Court:

  • Holds that its adoption of the Cruz gloss (requiring concealment or shielding, not mere shelter) heads off the notice issue; the statute, as construed, gives an “ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense” sufficient understanding of prohibited conduct.
  • Rejects the claim that combining criminal law with quo warranto creates unconstitutional discretion:
    • Prosecutors already have broad charging discretion under settled Supreme Court case law (Batchelder).
    • Quo warranto remedies have coexisted with criminal law for centuries, including actions based on the same conduct (Standard Oil Co. v. Missouri ex inf. Hadley).
    • The problem of vagueness lies in undefined substantive standards, not in the choice among available enforcement tools once substantive law is clear.

Holding: Neither the alien-harboring statute nor the use of that statute in a quo warranto context is unconstitutionally vague as applied to Annunciation House.

G. Records-Inspection Statute and Precompliance Review

1. Mootness

The AG argued that the records-request dispute was moot because he had ceased pressing the request and the trial court had earlier described it as moot.

The Court disagrees:

  • Voluntary cessation rarely moots a controversy; the actor could simply resume the conduct after litigation ends (Matthews v. Kountze ISD, United States v. W.T. Grant Co.).
  • Here, mootness is especially implausible because the AG is simultaneously appealing an injunction that restrains him from issuing such requests; relief can still be afforded.

Holding: The records-inspection controversy is not moot.

2. Applying City of Los Angeles v. Patel

In Patel, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a Los Angeles ordinance that required hotel operators to make guest registries available to police “on demand,” backed by immediate arrest and fines, with no opportunity for precompliance review. That regime was facially unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

Texas’s Business Organizations Code §§ 12.151–.152 resemble the Los Angeles ordinance in key respects:

  • They authorize the AG to inspect, examine, and copy corporate records;
  • They require that a managerial official “shall immediately permit” inspection following a written request;
  • Failure to comply triggers forfeiture of the entity’s right to do business and possible criminal penalties (§§ 12.155–.156).

Annunciation House argued that, like the L.A. ordinance, Texas law provides no precompliance review and is therefore facially invalid.

3. Constitutional saving construction of “immediately”

Rather than strike down the statutes, the Court invokes constitutional avoidance and the presumption that the Legislature acts against the backdrop of existing procedural law:

  • “Immediately” cannot mean literally “instantaneously” or “without any lapse of time,” since physical compliance always takes at least some time.
  • When the Legislature codified § 12.152 in the Business Organizations Code (2003), Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 176.6(e) already allowed any person subject to a document-inspection command to seek a protective order “before the time specified for compliance.”
  • The Legislature is presumed to legislate with knowledge of such procedural mechanisms.
  • Reading “immediately” as compatible with “prompt compliance subject to the availability of precompliance review (e.g., via Rule 176.6(e) protective orders)” both:
    • Respects the statutory text’s demand for expedition, and
    • Supplies the “opportunity to obtain precompliance review before a neutral decisionmaker” demanded by Patel.

Holding: Business Organizations Code §§ 12.151–.152 are not facially unconstitutional; they must be read to allow precompliance review (for example, via Rule 176.6(e)), and only after such review (or waiver) may penalties attach.

4. Rejection of the “Save Chick-fil-A” law claim and presumption of good faith

The trial court also found that the AG’s records request violated the Texas “Save Chick-fil-A” law (Gov’t Code § 2400.002), which prohibits adverse governmental action against persons based on their affiliation or support for religious organizations.

The Supreme Court:

  • Notes that Annunciation House does not defend this ground on appeal;
  • Finds no record evidence that the AG acted “wholly or partly” because of Annunciation House’s Catholic affiliation;
  • Invokes Von Dohlen v. City of San Antonio to reaffirm that courts presume governmental actors will comply with Chapter 2400 and the Constitution until contrary evidence appears.

Holding: The “Save Chick-fil-A” law provides no basis for the injunction here; the record lacks evidence of religious animus or discriminatory motive.

H. The Court’s Admonition to the Trial Court

Beyond the formal legal errors, the Supreme Court flags two systemic concerns.

  1. Overbroad injunction:
    • The trial court enjoined the AG from issuing any records requests to Annunciation House for two years unless he first sought permission and precompliance review from that specific court.
    • The Supreme Court calls this “unusual and broad,” observing that injunctions must be narrowly tailored and precise (Holubec v. Brandenberger).
    • Requiring a constitutional officer to seek leave from a single district court before exercising statutorily granted inspection powers is, at best, “doubtful.”
  2. Judicial rhetoric and separation of powers:
    • The trial court’s order accused the AG of “harassment,” “pretext,” and misusing law to “advance his own personal beliefs or political agenda.”
    • The Supreme Court reiterates the “duty to extend to the [Attorney General]—a member of a coordinate branch—a presumption of regularity, good faith, and legality” (Webster).
    • Courts may certainly respond vigorously to evidence of bad faith or constitutional violations, but must begin with a presumption that executive officials, “no less than the judiciary, intend to comply with the Constitution” (Borgelt v. Austin Firefighters Ass’n).

Formally, these observations are dicta but signal the Court’s expectation of greater restraint and evenhandedness in supervising the Attorney General’s exercise of constitutional authority.

V. Complex Concepts Simplified

Several dense doctrines feature prominently in this opinion. In more accessible terms:

1. What is “quo warranto”?

Quo warranto literally means “by what authority.” In Texas today, it is:

  • A civil proceeding the Attorney General (or certain local prosecutors, in other contexts) uses to challenge:
    • Whether someone lawfully holds a public office, or
    • Whether a corporation is lawfully exercising its chartered powers.
  • In the corporate context, it can lead to forfeiture of a corporate charter—effectively shutting down the corporation.

In this case, the AG wants to use quo warranto to revoke Annunciation House’s charter if it is proven to have engaged in unlawful alien-harboring.

2. Facial vs. as-applied constitutional challenges

  • Facial challenge: Claims that a statute is unconstitutional in all or almost all of its applications. Striking it down facially often eliminates the statute entirely.
  • As-applied challenge: Accepts that a statute is generally valid but argues that its application to particular facts or persons violates the Constitution.

The trial court found the records-inspection statute facially unconstitutional; the Supreme Court rejected that by reading the statute to allow precompliance review.

3. Federal preemption (field and conflict)

  • Field preemption: Congress has so thoroughly regulated an area that states are presumed excluded.
  • Conflict preemption:
    • Impossibility: It is impossible to comply with both state and federal law.
    • Obstacle: State law stands as an obstacle to the purposes and objectives of Congress.

Here, the Court says federal alien-harboring law does not occupy the entire field, and Texas’s parallel statute does not make compliance with federal law impossible or frustrate Congress’s objectives—especially since Congress invited state enforcement in § 1324(c).

4. Vagueness

A law is unconstitutionally vague if it:

  • Fails to give ordinary people fair notice of what is prohibited, or
  • Allows arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement because it sets no clear standards.

By adopting a settled, narrower interpretation of “harboring” that requires concealment from detection, the Court finds the Texas statute provides adequate notice and standards.

5. RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act)

Texas RFRA provides enhanced protection for religious exercise:

  • If government action substantially burdens religious exercise, the government must prove:
    • A compelling interest, and
    • The least restrictive means of achieving that interest.

RFRA can be:

  • A defense in a government enforcement case; or
  • The basis for an affirmative lawsuit for injunctive relief against threatened burdens.

In this case, RFRA is acknowledged as applicable in principle, but the Court holds it’s too early to decide its merits when the only question is whether the AG may file the case at all.

6. Precompliance review

Under Patel, when the government demands access to certain business records under threat of immediate penalty (fines, arrest, forfeiture), the Fourth Amendment requires an opportunity to:

  • Object to the demand,
  • Before a neutral decisionmaker (usually a court),
  • Before penalties are imposed.

Texas courts can supply such review via mechanisms like Rule 176.6(e) protective orders.

VI. Likely Impact and Future Litigation

A. For the Attorney General’s Office

The decision is a substantial institutional victory for the Attorney General:

  • It cements quo warranto as a constitutionally entrenched enforcement tool for corporate misconduct, including alleged criminal-law violations.
  • It prevents the Legislature—and trial courts—from lightly inferring limits on this power; only express statutory language can curb it.
  • It lowers the procedural bar to initiating quo warranto actions: the AG need only plead a plausible legal theory, not prove facts, to gain leave to file.

Practically, the AG may feel emboldened to deploy quo warranto more often against:

  • Nonprofits or corporations alleged to be engaged in unlawful immigration-related activity;
  • Corporations accused of fraud, abuse, or other serious misconduct that can be characterized as “exercise of powers not granted by law.”

B. For Nonprofits, Religious Ministries, and Immigrant Shelters

For entities like Annunciation House, the opinion has mixed implications:

  • Risks increased exposure: The AG may initiate quo warranto proceedings more readily, including charter-revocation threats, based on alleged violations of criminal statutes such as alien-harboring.
  • Clarifies some safe harbors:
    • Mere provision of shelter and humanitarian aid—even to undocumented migrants—is not criminal under Texas harboring law.
    • What crosses the line is purposeful shielding from detection, which will be a central factual battleground on remand.
  • RFRA remains a powerful but later-stage tool: Religious NGOs can still raise RFRA to challenge:
    • Specific applications of the harboring statute, and
    • Any attempt to revoke charters or shut down operations.
    But those arguments must be litigated on a full record, not at the threshold of whether the AG may file.
  • Fourth Amendment protections remain: Entities retain the right to seek precompliance review of records demands; they cannot lawfully be penalized for invoking that right.

C. For Corporate Regulation and the Use of Quo Warranto

The Court’s historical and doctrinal treatment revitalizes quo warranto as:

  • A viable mechanism for addressing corporate “misuser” of charter rights beyond traditional rate abuses;
  • An enforcement option that may parallel or supplement:
    • Administrative enforcement,
    • Criminal prosecution, and
    • Shareholder derivative suits.

Because the Court emphasizes:

  • The AG’s discretion in determining “sufficient cause,” and
  • The limited role of trial courts at the leave-to-file stage,

corporations should anticipate more aggressive and less easily blocked quo warranto filings when alleged conduct touches statutory or constitutional violations.

D. For Texas–Federal Immigration Interplay

The Court reinforces a trend visible in Kansas v. Garcia and Whiting:

  • States may enact and enforce parallel criminal laws that track federal immigration offenses, provided they do not contradict federal text or occupy exclusively federal fields.
  • Texas’s harboring statute now has the state’s highest court’s imprimatur as:
    • Substantively limited (requiring concealment), but
    • Constitutionally valid and enforceable alongside federal law.

This opens continued space for Texas to participate in immigration-related enforcement through state criminal law and civil remedies like quo warranto, subject to federal constitutional constraints and state-level RFRA protections.

VII. Conclusion

Paxton v. Annunciation House is not the last word on whether Annunciation House violated Texas’s alien-harboring statute, whether RFRA will ultimately shield its ministries, or whether its corporate charter will be revoked. The Supreme Court intentionally declines to address those merits questions.

What the case does settle is foundational:

  • The Texas Attorney General’s power to bring quo warranto actions against corporations—rooted in centuries of common law and constitutionalized in 1876—remains robust and can be limited only by express legislative direction.
  • Alleged criminal violations, including immigration-related offenses, can serve as predicates for such actions.
  • Trial courts cannot convert the leave-to-file stage into a merits trial, nor interpose RFRA or fact-bound defenses to prevent the AG from filing at all.
  • Texas’s alien-harboring statute survives preemption and vagueness challenges and, as construed, does not criminalize mere humanitarian sheltering.
  • Texas’s corporate-records inspection scheme survives a facial Fourth Amendment challenge by being read to incorporate precompliance review, illustrating the Court’s preference for constitutional-saving constructions where text allows.

Doctrinally, the opinion strengthens separation-of-powers principles: it demands that courts respect the Attorney General’s constitutionally conferred discretion, even in politically fraught contexts, while reserving to the judiciary the final word on whether charter forfeiture or criminal liability is ultimately warranted.

On remand, the litigation will shift from structural and facial challenges to evidence-intensive disputes about Annunciation House’s actual practices, the exact contours of “harboring,” the weight of Texas’s interest in enforcing its immigration-related statutes, and the strength of Annunciation House’s RFRA defenses. Future opinions in this litigation may become central precedents on the intersection of religious liberty, immigration aid, and state enforcement power. For now, Paxton v. Annunciation House firmly reestablishes the Attorney General’s quo warranto authority and clarifies the standards governing when, and how, Texas may seek to withdraw the corporate franchises it has granted.

Case Details

Comments