The Texas Supreme Court has sided with the nonprofit Dallas HERO against the Dallas City Council, ruling that the city must remove three proposed charter amendments from the November ballot.
Dallas HERO organized a citizen-led campaign to advance propositions that would increase government accountability. HERO’s three amendments included increased pay for law enforcement, allowing residents to sue city officials, and making the city manager’s salary performance-based.
The Dallas City Council proposed amendments contradictory to HERO’s, such as giving the city council complete authority over the city budget, granting legal immunity to city officials, and controlling the city manager’s salary.
The advocacy group sued the city council in August after they entered the last-minute amendments to the city’s charter amendment election.
Dallas HERO has suggested that their proposal to increase police pay and hire 1,000 new officers with priority caused the city council to retaliate with contradictory, misleading amendments and derail support for police. One X post by Dallas HERO called city Councilmen Adam Bazaldua and Omar Narvaez “cop-haters.”
The Texas Supreme Court ruling concluded that the citizen-led propositions must appear on the ballot and “duplicative propositions” should not be included, ultimately directing the city council to remove them.
“[T]he propositions contradict each other, and the ballot language as a whole will confuse and mislead voters because it does not acknowledge these contradictions or address the effect of the primacy provisions, which are chief features central to the character and purpose of the council-initiated propositions,” wrote Justice J. Brett Busby for the court.
Dallas City Council members have complied with the ruling by voting to remove the three council-proposed amendments.
