In a decisive legal victory for grassroots activism, the Supreme Court of Texas sided with Attorney General Ken Paxton and Dallas HERO, a local advocacy group, against the City of Dallas in a dispute over ballot language. In a ruling that halted the city council's attempt to significantly alter the wording of proposed amendments on an upcoming ballot, the court emphasized clarity and fairness in the voting process.
Dallas HERO had garnered support by amassing over 169,000 signatures to put three citizen-led amendments on the ballot. The city council, however, tried to surreptitiously add their own versions of the amendments that seemed designed to directly counteract the grassroots proposals. The Supreme Court stepped in to ensure to not allow the city to potentially mislead voters with these counterpropositions.
As reported by the Office of the Attorney General, the high court's order mandated that the City of Dallas remove the contentious amendments crafted by the city council from the ballot. The court 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."
Attorney General Paxton, whose office filed an amicus letter in August opposing the City of Dallas's move, applauded the ruling. "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," Paxton said, as reported by his office. This intervention by the state's top legal officer helped to ensure to not set a precedent where official language manipulated by elected representatives undermines grassroots democratic actions.
