Attorney General Ken Paxton Helps Defeat City of Dallas’s Attempt to Mislead Voters and Undermine Citizen-Led Public Safety Charter Amendments

AUSTIN – The Texas Supreme Court ruled against the City of Dallas’s attempt to unlawfully mislead voters regarding proposed city charter amendments. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an amicus letter opposing the city’s actions.

In August, the Office of the Attorney General filed an amicus letter with 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-led initiatives to voters. Dallas HERO, a grassroots organization, successfully collected more than 169,000 voter signatures to put 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 functionally would counteract the citizen proposals using misleading and convoluted language.

Now, the Supreme Court of Texas has ordered the City of Dallas to remove the city council’s misleading amendments and refrain from attempting to undermine the popular citizen-led propositions.

The Supreme Court of Texas ruled: “[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.

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