Terms of use
Decode Texas is a nonpartisan public-transparency project built only from official Texas state records. This page explains what on the site is public record, what is original work, and what you may do with each.
What is public record, and free for anyone to use
The facts this site reports are public records of the State of Texas and are not claimed by anyone here. That includes:
- Every recorded vote, and the journals of the Texas House and Senate they come from.
- The Attorney General’s opinions themselves, and the official subject lines and category tags shown on the opinions index — those are the office’s own words.
- Bill numbers, captions, authorship and status from Texas Legislature Online.
- Member rosters, districts and party from official state sources, and the U.S. Census place and district files behind the “who represents this town” lookup.
You do not need permission to use any of that. Go to the state’s own sites and take it. Every page here links the government record behind it so you can.
What is original work
Some of what is on this site was written, not collected:
- The plain-English summaries of Attorney General opinions. Each one was written for Decode Texas from the text of the opinion itself. They are restatements in original words, not the official language, and the linked PDF governs.
- The wording of the pages — explanations, method notes, glossary entries, and how each gap in the record is described.
- The site design and code, and the way the records are selected, organised and presented.
© 2026 Decode Texas. All rights reserved. The original material described above may not be copied, republished or redistributed, in whole or in substantial part, without written permission. Copyright notices and attribution on these pages may not be removed or altered.
Quoting a sentence or two with credit and a link back is fine and always will be.
Accuracy, and what this site does not do
Decode Texas takes no position on any bill, opinion, person or party. It publishes no scores, grades or ratings. Where the official record is silent or unclear, the site says so rather than guessing. Summaries are labeled as summaries and were checked against the official document, but the official document always governs — if the two ever disagree, the state’s record is correct and this site is wrong. If you find such a case, it is worth reporting.
Nothing here is legal advice.
Not affiliated with the State of Texas
This is a private citizen project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the State of Texas, the Texas Legislature, the Office of the Attorney General, any officeholder, candidate, party, campaign, or any unit of local government.
Automated access
Ordinary search-engine indexing is welcome. Bulk automated copying of the authored summaries is not permitted. If you want the underlying facts in bulk, the state publishes them — please take them from the source rather than from here.