Attorney General's Opinion

1 AG Opinion Issue According to Shugerman (2018), the task of an Attorney General is to provide legal advice in the form of written opinions. In the state of Texas, the Attorney General - Ken Paxton - was asked by the District Attorney to provide his opinion as to the extent to which the action of a nonprofit charitable organization to offer alcohol as a raffle prize could be said to be legal. In particular, the District Attorney sought the Attorney General’s opinion as to whether alcohol which had been donated in the form of bottles could constitute a raffle prize.

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2 Attorney General’s Opinion In his opinion, the Attorney General noted that the award of alcohol as a prize had not been prohibited by the Charitable Raffle Enabling Act (Texas Attorney General, 2017). For this reason, the action of nonprofit charitable organization could not be said to be a sale.

Furthermore, the Attorney general noted that offering alcohol as a raffle prize could not be considered an activity otherwise regulated by the Alcoholic Beverage Code. As such, it was not likely that a court of law would conclude that there is an existing piece of law that specifically prohibits such a raffle prize.

Opinion A reading of the Attorney General's opinion and the Charitable Raffle Enabling Act confirms that the Attorney General was correct in his interpretation of the law (Texas Attorney General, 2017). A common rule in the legal field is that, unless something has been outrightly prohibited, one cannot purport to say that it is illegal. In order to have regularity and certainty, it is a requirement that laws are clear (Lashmet, 2020). To this extent, then, the charity in question could not be said to have been acting in contravention of the law. This is because it did not engage either in the sale or activity which would require the permission of the regulatory authority as established under the Alcoholic Beverage Code.

3 Reference Lashmet, T. D. (2020). Texas Attorney General Opinion: Estray Laws Apply in All Counties. Ranch and Rural Living, 101(7), 20-21.

Shugerman, J. H. (2018). Professionals, Politicos, and Crony Attorneys General: A Historical Sketch of the US Attorney General as a Case for Structural Independence. Fordham L. Rev., 87, 1965. https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol87/iss5/8.

Texas Attorney General. (2017). KP-0153. Texas Attorney General. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/ken-paxton/kp-0153