{"id":462035,"date":"2026-10-10T09:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T09:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/462035\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T09:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T09:28:09","slug":"amid-budget-cuts-and-furloughs-dallas-sued-to-keep-secret-city-officials-travel-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/462035\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid budget cuts and furloughs, Dallas sued to keep secret city officials\u2019 travel details"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas Attorney General ruled Dallas must release records tied to trips of the mayor and Council members have taken. The city is now suing to keep it secret.<\/p>\n

DALLAS \u2014 The city of Dallas is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to keep secret details of flights the mayor, City Manager and Council members have taken across the country and around the world, citing an obscure change to the state transportation code that lawyers and lawmakers say was not meant to apply to official travel. \u00a0<\/p>\n


\n \"\" <\/p>\n


\n This story continues below. <\/p>\n

The lawsuit, filed in Travis County District Court in Austin, comes after a series of public records requests by WFAA and other media outlets<\/a> seeking information about taxpayer-funded trips to New York, Montreal, Taiwan and others. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The city redacted information tied to the flights — in some cases releasing only the dollar amount spent, but obscuring other ticket information — \u00a0arguing a change to the state transportation code that took effect in September 2025 protected that information from release. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the city asked the AG\u2019s office, which decides which records are public, to allow it to withhold the information, but the AG declined \u2013 and ruled the city must release the information to WFAA and other requesters. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But rather than release the information, Dallas sued the attorney general to keep it a secret. \u00a0<\/p>\n

A city spokesperson declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. \u00a0<\/p>\n

On August 3, Council member Cara Mendelsohn sent a memo to Tolbert asking her to release the travel records. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTransparency and accountability are fundamental to good government. Dallas residents have a right to know how taxpayer funded travel is authorized, conducted, and paid for,\u201d she wrote. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Mendelsohn said later this summer that she had yet to receive a response from city officials. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the mayor and council members travel, they\u2019re using taxpayer money to do that. And taxpayers deserve to know how that money\u2019s being spent,\u201d said Reid Pillifant, an attorney with Haynes Boone \u2013 which was hired by WFAA to make the case to the AG\u2019s office that the records should be released. \u00a0<\/p>\n

He said Dallas city attorneys cited a change to the state\u2019s transportation code that keeps private information related to the public\u2019s use of an airport facility \u2013 including exempting their names, phone numbers, flight information and TSA Pre-Check status from public disclosure. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city is stretching this exception way beyond its intended purpose,\u201d Pillifant said about the city\u2019s argument. \u201cThe legislature was not trying to protect information about taxpayer-funded travel by elected officials, like what\u2019s at issue here.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

When told of the city\u2019s argument, State Rep. Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas), who sponsored the bill, said it was \u201cnever intended\u201d to be used in such a way. \u00a0<\/p>\n

State Senator Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas), who authored the bill in the senate, provided the following statement: \u201cMy bill was intended to protect private data \u2014 like name, phone number, zip code, TSA Pre-Check and Global Entry numbers, etc. \u2014 of airport customers when they upgrade WiFi or pay for other things sold at the airport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Attorney General ruled Dallas must release records tied to trips of the mayor and Council members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-462035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}