The Texas Supreme Court has issued a ruling against the City of Dallas’ attempt to illegally mislead voters about proposed amendments to the city’s charter. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a letter a friend opposing the city’s actions.
In August, the Texas Attorney General’s Office presented a letter a friend before the Texas Supreme Court, opposing an attempt by the Dallas City Council to substantially change ballot language in a last-minute attempt to obscure the meaning of certain citizen initiatives from voters. Dallas HERO, a community-based political organization, managed to collect 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 to the same ballot that would functionally counter the citizen proposals using misleading and convoluted language.
Now, the Texas Supreme Court has ordered the City of Dallas to remove the misleading city council amendments and refrain from attempting to overturn the popular citizen proposals.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled: “A city may not mislead its voters by presenting the opposite of citizen-initiated propositions required to appear on the ballot. […] As we have explained, the text of each contested motion initiated by the council demonstrates that its purpose is to nullify a motion initiated by the citizens.
“I filed a letter in support of this group of citizens’ legal action because government entities cannot plant confusing counterpropositions on the ballot to mislead voters simply because officials hope to see certain measures fail,” Attorney General Paxton said.
To read the opinion, click here.
