Welp.
Two years after state lawmakers passed a sweeping law aimed at preventing Texas cities from adopting progressive policies, that law may finally get its first major test.
Three Dallas residents sued the city in Denton County District Court Wednesday to strike down dozens of local ordinances they allege violate the law, dubbed the “Death Star” law by opponents. The law made it illegal for cities and counties to enact local laws that go further than certain broad areas of state law.
“Cities don’t get to pick and choose which state laws they follow,” said Matthew Chiarizio, a senior attorney for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the influential conservative think tank, who is representing the plaintiffs. “For too long, Dallas has piled unnecessary and duplicative regulations on its citizens. The Legislature has rightly preempted those rules, and this lawsuit is about protecting Texans’ freedom to live and work without being smothered by layers of needless local regulation.”
A representative for the city of Dallas declined to comment, citing litigation.
Some 83 ordinances could be wiped out if a judge sides with the plaintiffs. Among them are a slew of local protections for LGBTQ+ people, rules that city contractors pay employees a living wage and noise regulations for public parks and recreational facilities.
Dallas officials could also be prevented from regulating ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft that operate at Dallas Love Field Airport, valet parking services and gas drilling and production within city limits.
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Houston, San Antonio and El Paso sued to block the law a month after it passed. A Travis County judge ruled the law unconstitutional in 2023. In July, the Third Court of Appeals overturned that decision and cleared the way for the Dallas lawsuit.
See here and here for the most recent updates. The Third Court ruling wasn’t about whether the law was in fact constitutional or not but instead hinged on the claim that the cities didn’t yet have standing to sue since nothing had happened to them yet. That is obviously no longer the case. I don’t know exactly how this is going to go, but I do expect the Supreme Court to more or less go along with what Abbott and the Republicans want in the end. It may take a couple of years to get there, though, and there may be some limitations along the way. We won’t know for awhile. I don’t know if other lawsuits will be filed in other cities, or if the malignant activists behind this one will wait to see how it goes first. I do expect there will be others eventually. KERA has more.