§ 101.052.Legislative

A separation of powers exclusion, and it reaches beyond the Legislature itself.

The chapter does not apply to a claim based on an act or omission of the legislature or a member of the legislature acting in his official capacity, or to the legislative functions of a governmental unit.

The second clause is the broader one. "Legislative functions of a governmental unit" covers a city council passing an ordinance, a commissioners court adopting a budget, and a school board setting policy. Those are legislative acts by bodies that are not the Legislature.

The principle is old and not peculiar to Texas: those who make law answer for it politically, not in tort. A claim that an ordinance was negligently drafted, or that a policy was unwise, is a challenge to a legislative judgment, and courts do not assess those in damages.

The line falls between making a decision and carrying it out. Adopting a policy is legislative; an employee's negligence in executing it is not. A council resolution to resurface a road is protected; a crew's negligence in doing the work is not covered by this section.

The exclusion works alongside the judicial exclusion and the discretionary powers exclusion, which together remove the three classic categories of protected governmental decision-making.