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Paxton Petitions Texas Supreme Court to Prevent an Unlawful Charter Amendment From Being Placed on San Antonio Voters? Ballots in the Upcoming May Election?
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AUSTIN ??Attorney General Paxton has filed an amicus letter brief in the Texas Supreme Court to stop an unlawful charter amendment from being placed on the ballots of San Antonio, Texas voters in the upcoming May 2023 municipal general election. The letter brief was filed in support of the Texas Alliance for Life?s challenge to the charter amendment, which contains numerous left-wing policy initiatives.??
To ensure that charter amendments are clear and that voters can make their voices heard, Texas state law requires charter amendments to include only one subject. But San Antonio?s proposed charter amendment does not accord with this long-standing legal requirement, as it contains a multitude of different topics.??
Even the San Antonio City Attorney has acknowledged that the proposed amendment presents at least six subjects, among them changes to policies regarding abortion, marijuana, no-knock warrants, chokeholds, the creation of a new municipal government position, and a reduction in criminal penalties for numerous state-law crimes.??
The proposed charter amendment thus indisputably violates state law and, at a minimum, the Texas Supreme Court should require that each?subject be broken out into a separate amendment for voter approval. It is incumbent upon the Court to act now because Texas law requires the unlawful nature of the proposed amendment to be corrected before the election, not after.?
?Texas?s law limiting charter amendments to one subject was created specifically to guarantee that convoluted amendments like this are not presented to voters,? said Attorney General Paxton. ?This proposal contains a variety of different radical proposals that have been packaged together to confuse Texans, and it is imperative that this effort be stopped before it is too late.???
To read the full amicus letter brief, click here.??
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