The Dallas City Council abruptly went into closed session for the second time Wednesday evening to discuss a lawsuit filed by a voter who signed three petitions circulated by a nonprofit called Dallas HERO. Those petitions garnered enough signatures to add three charter amendments to the November ballot. They are related to police staffing and budget allocations, the city manager’s office, and who can file lawsuits against the city.
Weeks ago, Council adopted three of its own amendments intended to negate the petition-generated amendments, should they pass. But the state’s highest court ruled Wednesday that the city must remove the conflicting measures from the ballot.
Dallas HERO’s three propositions, which will be the final three amendments listed on the ballot, would require the city to hire 900 more police officers and set aside more money for public safety. Another would tie the city manager’s bonuses and continued employment to an annual resident satisfaction survey. The final amendment would allow residents to sue the city if they believe it is not abiding by the charter, city ordinances, or state law. Read more about those amendments and what they would mean for City Hall’s operations here.
In response to the amendments, council members approved three countermeasures intended to neuter the HERO amendments. One sought to give the Council final authority regarding the employment and compensation of the city manager. Another specified that the city does not waive its governmental immunity from lawsuits or grant standing to residents to bring suit against the city. The third confirmed that the Dallas City Council has the authority to approve city employee wages.
A little more than two weeks ago, plaintiff Cathy Cortina Arvizu sued the 13 council members who voted for the three countermeasures, alleging that they violated the U.S. Constitution. She is a paralegal who works for Ashford Inc., a company controlled by Park Cities businessman Monty Bennett. Arvizu signed all three petitions and says in her suit that the Council’s amendments are intended to confuse voters.
The suit was filed in federal court and with the Texas Supreme Court, which issued its ruling today. In the opinion written by Justice Brett Busby, the state’s highest court found the language in the city’s amendments “does not acknowledge the conflicting character of these propositions so that voters can attempt to avoid the dilemma by casting consistent votes.” (Campaign finance reports show that an LLC affiliated with Bennett, Violet Verbena, contributed $2,500 to Busby’s campaign in 2021 and $5,000 in 2020.)
The only recourse, the court says, is to remove the council-ordered amendments from the ballot since their language fails to explain how they conflicted with HERO’s amendments. All of this means, of course, that voters will now look at 18 amendments on their ballot, not 21. It also means that anyone campaigning against the three amendments will be faced with educating prospective voters ahead of early voting.
The city, meanwhile, surely watches with bated breath. Dallas has struggled to hire officers, even with additional positions being budgeted. It’s also searching for a new city manager, who might be turned off by the proposition of their job being reliant upon a survey. Council on Wednesday approved a state-mandated plan to bring the public safety pension to solvency, which could also be impacted by at least one of the proposed amendments.
The last day to register to vote is October 7. The first day of early voting is October 21, and the first day to request a mail-in ballot is October 25. Election Day is November 5.
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