Texas did intensify it, in particular by trying to use private enforcement as a mechanism for doing an end-run around federal constitutional oversight of state law (it remains to be seen whether this will work once it's fully litigated). But private enforcement mechanisms have been an almost unique feature of U.S. law for considerably longer than that.

This is a pretty good law review article from 10 years ago: J. Maria Glover (2012). The Structural Role of Private Enforcement Mechanisms in Public Law. William & Mary Law Review 53:1137–1217. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol53/iss4/3. A quote:

> The American regulatory system is unique in that it expressly relies on a diffuse set of regulators, including private parties, rather than on a centralized bureaucracy for the effectuation of its substantive aims. In contrast with more traditional conceptions of private enforcement as an ad hoc supplement to public law, this Article argues that private regulation through litigation is integral to the structure of the modern administrative state. Private litigation and the mechanisms that enable it are not merely add-ons to our regulatory regime, much less are they fundamentally at odds with it.

I'm not certain, but I think this was started by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Instead of having government officials verifying compliance, it created "professional plaintiffs". [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...

If you believe this phenomenon started in Texas last year, you might want to do some research, and correct your post. It's been going on a lot longer than that.

The Texas abortion law is actually quite similar to the one enacted by Augustus Caesar on the topic of adultery.