From the Trib, which did the initial reporting that informed me of these dumb new elections in the first place.
The new law requires only counties with more than 75,000 residents to hold the elections, a designation that applies to 50 of the state’s 254 counties. In 30 of those counties, appraisal board candidates either didn’t draw challengers or the elections were canceled because no one filed for the positions. In instances where no one filed for an elected spot, the remaining board members can appoint people to those seats.
[…]
Still, some critics worry that elected board members will insert havoc and political jockeying into the property appraisal process. Before the Texas Legislature created appraisal districts in the late 1970s, the task of assessing property owners’ values fell to individual taxing entities like cities, counties and school districts — which often came up with different values for the same property. Appraisal districts came about as a way to smooth out that process and create one set of values.
The state also created appraisal districts in order to “remove political pressure from the appraisal process,” South said.
“Having elected board members might interject political pressure right back into it,” said South, who chairs the Texas Association of Appraisal District’s legislative committee.
Voter turnout in Texas’ local elections tends to be anemic. Political experts expect the appraisal district races also to be low-turnout affairs: Candidates are running for an obscure board, and it’s the first time they’re doing so.
“It just all adds up to this very lackluster interest into what could make a difference, particularly in these large metropolitan counties that have seen their property values just skyrocket over the last decade,” said Renée Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston.
Though the seats are nonpartisan, candidates have campaigned with partisan identifiers, drawn endorsements from prominent officials and deployed campaign rhetoric that hues along traditional partisan lines.
Conservative-leaning candidates in particular have campaigned as “taxpayer advocates” seeking to rein in what they see as excesses among appraisal districts.
“Tarrant Appraisal District has been hostile to the very taxpayers they were commissioned to serve,” Eric Morris, a Haltom City Council member running for a seat on Tarrant Appraisal District’s board, wrote on his campaign website. “It’s time to end that and balance the scales between the government and the people footing the bill!”
Liberal-leaning and progressive candidates have positioned themselves as bulwarks against would-be tax-cut warriors who they fear would unduly interfere with the appraisal process and starve school districts and municipalities of much-needed tax revenue.
Kendall Scudder, a Texas Democratic Party finance chair seeking a seat on the Dallas Central Appraisal District’s board, notes on his campaign website that the assessment entity is “vitally important” to ensuring local governments function and that it’s his priority to “ensure fair, equitable, and uniform appraisals, to ensure that citizens protesting their appraisals feel that they are treated fairly.”
Two of the newly elected board members must sign off on the appointees to appraisal review boards, which could let elected members stack review boards with people who promise to cut property owners’ values, said Dick Lavine, a tax policy expert at the left-leaning think tank Every Texan. Lavine is running for the Travis Central Appraisal District board.
[Brent] South, the Hunt County chief appraiser, also worries elected members could exercise their veto power and bring the appointment process to a halt, he said.
A likely outcome of either scenario: the chief appraiser would be forced to accept lower values, at a potential cost to localities and school districts.
“Making it more direct like this is just an invitation for political meddling,” said Lavine, who previously chaired the Travis appraisal board.
Emphasis mine. Ain’t democracy grand? As I noted in January, as of the November 2023 election there were just those 50 counties affected by this new law, but the 51st was right on the edge of being covered, and others (including counties in the greater Houston area) were likely to meet that milestone in the next few years. It remains unclear to me what mechanism exists to force a county that has surpassed 75K in population to begin holding these elections.
Anyway. I’ll have the results for you tomorrow. Go vote if you haven’t, today is the day.
