Federal judge: Texas statute Kenny Boy Paxton is using to harass groups he doesn't like is unconstitutional

Texas' "request to examine" lawsuit, ever more abused by Kenny Boy Paxton, has been struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional. The Trib links to Bloomberg Law, which cites Mark Lane's reasoning about the statute, more than a century old:

Judge Mark Lane of the Western District of Texas said his decision “wasn’t that hard” because Texas’ Request to Examine statute doesn’t expressly allow a served party to pursue pre-compliance judicial review before producing requested records. ...

Lane said the Request to Examine statute was written for another time, and that recently it has been “frankensteined” by Paxton’s office to include exceptions that don’t appear in the law. The law requires immediate production of requested records, leaving a served party no chance to seek pre-compliance judicial review. The US Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that a served party is entitled to a court’s review in Los Angeles v. Patel.

There you go.

The Trib wonders how this will play out in state courts, vis-a-vis individuals who have no presence outside Texas. That said, the Sixth and Eighth Amendments have been fairly, if not totally, "federalized," so I don't think state courts can really ignore this.

Too bad the 200-plus-year-old US Constitution doesn't get more and more judicial rulings about being from another time.