The Texas Supreme Court has ruled against the City of Dallas's attempt to mislead voters regarding proposed city charter amendments. Attorney General Ken Paxton had filed an amicus letter opposing the city's actions.
In August, the Office of the Attorney General submitted an amicus letter to the Texas Supreme Court, challenging the Dallas City Council's effort to substantially alter ballot language in a last-minute move aimed at obscuring the meaning of certain citizen-led initiatives. Dallas HERO, a grassroots organization, successfully collected over 169,000 voter signatures to place three proposed amendments to the Dallas city charter on the ballot. In response, the city council attempted to add three competing amendments that would effectively counteract the citizen proposals using misleading and convoluted language.
The Supreme Court of Texas has now ordered the City of Dallas to remove these misleading amendments and refrain from undermining popular citizen-led propositions.
The Supreme Court stated: "[A] city may not confuse its voters by submitting the converse of citizen-initiated propositions that must appear on the ballot. [...] As we have explained, the text of each challenged council-initiated proposition demonstrates that its purpose is to nullify a citizen-initiated proposition."
"I filed a letter in support of this citizen group’s lawsuit because government entities cannot plant confusing counter propositions on the ballot to mislead voters simply because the officials hope to see certain measures fail," said Attorney General Paxton.
To read the opinion, click here.