According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), HB 1571 would have a negative General Revenue-related impact of $775,000 for the 2026–27 biennium. The entire cost would occur in fiscal year 2026, with no additional General Revenue impact projected for fiscal years 2027 through 2030. The bill would not itself appropriate money, but the LBB states that it could provide the legal basis for an appropriation to implement the bill.

The cost is attributed to technology changes at the Office of Court Administration. LBB identifies a $25,000 one-time cost to update the Protective Order Registry so that additional users can be hosted within its confidential module, including login and redaction software to limit user access. LBB also identifies a $750,000 one-time cost to update the Public Safety Reporting System because the current Protective Order Registry is not designed to provide the court notifications required by the bill.

The fiscal note characterizes the state cost as a one-time technology expense rather than a recurring annual cost. However, the bill would create new system functionality and access requirements for registry users, so implementation would still expand the state’s court-information infrastructure. For local governments, LBB states that the fiscal implications cannot be determined at this time, meaning the note does not estimate whether counties, courts, prosecutors, or law enforcement agencies would incur costs or savings from the bill’s registry-access and notification provisions.

HB 1571 addresses a legitimate public-safety and court-coordination concern. The bill analysis states that protective orders can be undermined by communication breakdowns among courts, law enforcement, and legal representatives, and that the bill seeks to improve statewide enforcement by improving access to protective order information. The bill does not expressly create a new criminal offense, increase criminal penalties, change eligibility for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision, or grant new rulemaking authority. Those features weigh in the bill’s favor.

However, the bill advances that goal by expanding the state’s protective order registry infrastructure and broadening access to sensitive judicial information. It would allow additional parties, including attorneys representing parties in civil actions and certain self-represented victims, to access protective order registry information. It would also require the registry to be configured to provide access to courts, prosecutors, attorneys, self-represented victims, and peace officers in specified circumstances. If a person subject to a protective order appears in another county’s court for a civil violation of the order or any criminal offense, the registry would have to notify the issuing court and provide information about the violation or offense, the court handling the matter, the prosecutor, and any identified peace officer.

The Committee Substitute includes meaningful safeguards that improve the bill from a privacy and due-process standpoint. It prohibits an attorney representing a party in a civil action from accessing a protective order application unless the order was granted and is in effect, has expired, or was vacated by final judgment. It also prohibits access to confidential or sealed portions of an application or order, including a protected party’s address or contact information. Those limits reduce, but do not eliminate, the concern that sensitive registry information could be accessed or used in civil litigation beyond the narrow safety purpose of the protective order system.

The bill would also expand the size and scope of government. It adds new system-access functions, creates automated notification duties, imposes new disclosure and certification requirements in marriage dissolution cases, authorizes judicial sanctions for nondisclosure or misleading statements, and directs the Office of Court Administration to study secure implementation and possible information sharing with national or other state databases. The study requirement is useful, but it also highlights a central concern: the bill contemplates expanding access and system functionality in an area involving sensitive personal and safety-related information before all security, audit, and implementation questions are fully resolved.

The bill also increases taxpayer burden. According to the LBB, the Committee Substitute would have a negative General Revenue-related impact of $775,000 for the 2026–27 biennium, with the full cost occurring in fiscal year 2026. LBB attributes $25,000 to updating the Protective Order Registry to host additional confidential-module users with login and redaction controls, and $750,000 to updating the Public Safety Reporting System because the current registry is not designed to provide the court notifications required by the bill. LBB states that the fiscal implications for local governments cannot be determined at this time.

The bill does not create a broad regulatory burden on private businesses. It does not impose a new occupational license, business fee, market restriction, or general compliance regime. Its regulatory effect is more limited and procedural: parties in marriage dissolution cases would have to review the protective order registry, disclose certain orders or pending applications, attach required copies, and face possible sanctions if they fail to disclose registry-listed orders or knowingly mislead the court. That obligation may be justified in some cases involving family violence or protective orders, but it is still a new state-imposed procedural burden on individuals in civil litigation.

For these reasons, House Bill 1571 should not be supported as written. The bill’s safety objective is legitimate, but the mechanism is broader than necessary and creates government-growth, taxpayer-cost, privacy, and administrative-discretion concerns. Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on HB 1571 unless amended to narrow attorney access to cases directly involving the protective order or protected person, limit notification triggers to protective-order violations or offenses directly related to victim safety, require security certification before implementation, add audit logs and misuse penalties, require periodic legislative reporting, and sunset expanded non-government access unless reauthorized.

The bill has little direct impact on free enterprise. It does not create a business licensing requirement, impose a new market regulation, restrict entry into a profession, or establish a subsidy. Its main effect on private actors is procedural and litigation-related, particularly for attorneys and parties in civil actions who may access or disclose registry information under the bill’s terms. Because those effects are tied to court proceedings rather than general business activity, the free-enterprise concern is limited.

The bill does not materially affect private property rights. It does not regulate land use, authorize takings, affect asset ownership, impose property-based compliance requirements, or expand eminent domain authority. Any impact on private property rights is incidental at most.

The bill supports personal responsibility in civil litigation by requiring parties in marriage dissolution cases to disclose relevant protective orders or pending applications and by allowing courts to sanction parties who fail to disclose registry-listed orders or knowingly mislead the court. That promotes candor and accountability in proceedings where protective-order information may be directly relevant. The concern is that the state is creating a broader registry-based compliance structure rather than relying solely on case-specific court processes.

The bill has its most significant liberty cost under limited government. It expands the state protective order registry’s access structure, requires new system functionality, creates automated notification duties, imposes new disclosure and certification requirements in divorce proceedings, and directs the Office of Court Administration to study secure implementation and possible information sharing with national or other state databases. The LBB estimates a negative General Revenue-related impact of $775,000 for the 2026–27 biennium, driven by technology updates to the Protective Order Registry and Public Safety Reporting System. These provisions expand state court-information infrastructure and create precedent for broader government data-sharing, even though the bill’s public-safety objective is legitimate.

The bill has a mixed but concerning impact on individual liberty. It is intended to improve protective-order enforcement and victim safety, but it does so by expanding access to sensitive protective order registry information. The committee substitute adds safeguards by limiting civil-attorney access to certain applications and prohibiting access to confidential or sealed information, including protected-party addresses and contact information. Still, broader registry access and automated notifications tied to a person subject to a protective order appearing in another county’s court for any criminal offense raise privacy and data-use concerns.