Texas has failed to produce critical discovery in a timely manner or at all, and has asserted wide-ranging, shifting, and sequential privilege claims that will continue to require significant resources from the parties and the Court to resolve. These discovery delays have been caused by the State’s own conduct and strategic decisions, and have occurred despite the Attorney General’s best efforts to facilitate the expedited litigation of this matter. While the Attorney General shares the parties’ and the Court’s interest in resolving this matter as quickly as is reasonable, the State’s litigation decisions and discovery delays have rendered a July 9, 2012 trial date both impractical and severely prejudicial to the Attorney General … The State of Texas, which professes that ‘implementing SB 14 for the November 2012 elections is the paramount goal of this litigation,’ (ECF 83) has taken precisely the opposite approach at every step.

First, Texas has improperly asserted that the deliberative process privilege over documents in the possession, custody, or control of the Office of Governor. Second, the State has claimed a state legislative privilege extends to communications between a legislator and a state agency, as well as to purely internal documents produced by a state agency after communications with a legislator. Third, the State of Texas has incorrectly asserted that the attorney-client privilege extends to communications between the Texas Legislative Council and state legislators, although the State has not yet produced a privilege log concerning documents in the possession of the TLC.