I can see from the articles that Brutus is working on that he intends to publish at least one article on each of the proposed charter amendments that we will have a chance to vote on in May.
One of the many problems with the proposed amendments is that some of them appear to violate both the Texas constitution and state law.
Our constitution
Article 11, section 5 of the Texas constitution reads:
The adoption or amendment of charters is subject to such limitations as may be prescribed by the Legislature, and no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State.
For the staff over at the city let me explain that no amendment is valid if it violates either the state constitution or a state law.
State law
Title 2, Subtitle A, Chapter 9, Section 9.004 (d) of the Local Government Code (that’s a law for the folks over at the city) says:
An amendment may not contain more than one subject.
Of course the ballot language approved by city council violates this law many times.
In the city’s own words
Using the explanations found on the city’s web site we see:
Proposition One
- Move the City general elections from May in odd numbered years to November in even numbered years (beginning in 2018)
- Amend the candidate petition to conform to State law – the greater of 25 qualified voters or .5% of the total vote
- Special elections to be held on next uniform election date or next election conducted County Elections Administrator
- Increase council districts to 10 when population reaches 1 million
My count is that the proposed amendment covers four subjects.
Proposition Two
- Allow for the cancelation [sic] of up to seven regular City Council meetings per year but not more than two in a row
- City Attorney appointed by entire City Council solely on the basis of legal experience and qualifications
- Appointments to the City’s boards and commissions by entire City Council
- Allow ordinances and the City Code be made available by any contemporary means such as the internet
- Allow the Council to authorize leases of public property and temporary uses of streets and rights- of-way by resolution in lieu of ordinance
- Clarify the Mayor is allowed to make appointments to boards and commissions
I count six here.
Proposition Four
- Increase annual salary of the District Representatives to the H.U.D. median income for a family of 4 for El Paso County (beginning in 2015)
- Increase annual salary of the Mayor to 150% of the amount of District Representatives (beginning in 2015)
- Clarify the prohibition against Mayor and Council holding another public office or public employment and conforms with State law (not more prohibitive)
The mayor’s salary and the council member’s salaries are separate subjects to me.
OK, you get the idea. Some of the other propositions have the same problem. I have no doubt that the city staff will argue that the ballot wording only asks one question for each proposition. Actually proposition one does not ask a question, Brutus explained that in Strike two. The city will have to argue that “Shall we change the law to allow the use of currently illegal drugs, outlaw automobiles, discontinue public schools, and give all state employees a pay raise” is only a single question. We know better and so do they.
The legislature
The legislature wants us to be able to vote on issues separately. For example you may agree that city elections should be moved to November, but not agree that we should have 10 city representatives. We are supposed to be able to vote on these issues separately.
This could cause a real mess in the courts if someone decides to challenge an amendment that passes.
As an aside, I note that the city believes that the amendments will pass. Their web page says “CITY CHARTER to be amended”. Maybe they plan to ignore our votes as they have in the past and just order that the charter be amended.
Brutus looks like he is going to do a pretty good job addressing each proposition.
Please study them and then vote in May.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty
Cato
elpasospeak 
I am not sure – but I believe the Charter Amendment ballot language is also reviewed by the Texas Attorney General. If that’s true then what’s the big deal. Go read the Charter to see how it’s organized and that might explain why the amendments are worded the way they are.
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MEK, I post this comment with no ill will toward you, we evidently see things differently.
You might be right, the attorney general may be required to review the language. The plain wording of the law and of the constitution of the state hold more sway with me than the ruling of a state officer. I don’t know what the attorney general might do. I don’t care what our city charter says about this issue. Anything that it says that is contrary to the state constitution is null.
What I do know is what the specific law and the constitution say.
To me it would be a big deal if the attorney general ruled that this is allowable.
I doubt anything will come of this. I think that we would all be better off if we understood and then obeyed the rules.
By the way, I have read the city charter.
Cato
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Its interesting that no one brought up this issue in 2007 or 2004 when the Charter was changed. Guess because there is such hatred toward the city manager and certain city reps on this blog there is no way possible for anyone to advance a counter argument.
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Actually I have seen no hatred of the city manager or the city representatives on this blog. The blog makes a sincere effort to discuss issues, not people. Every one of your comments has been posted. If you have an argument and can advance it I will be pleased to consider it.
As for your thoughts about earlier charter amendments you are probably right. I don’t know — I have not studied them in depth. I gather that you are saying that they addressed multiple subjects.
But that does raise the old question — do two wrongs make a right?
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I have monitored city council agendas/actions for about 15 years. I understand the process involved for ballot items, initiatives etc. No one at city hall has done anything to violate the law regarding ballot items. It is too easy to take a paragraph out of a law and make it seem like someone is breaking the law based on that paragraph.Its your blog – have fun.
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Dear MEK,
I think what you perceive as “hatred” is more disgust and disrespect and distrust of a city manager and certain city reps who made have made clear their disdain and disrespect for hard-working taxpayers who disagree with them. They’ve done it through their words (including e-mails), deeds and actions. Let’s not forget that our city manager referred to dissenters as “crazies” long before this blog was ever started. (She loves name calling as evidenced by her other recent e-mail in which she labeled someone a “boozer” and “partier (sic)”.) On top of all that, we have a Mayor who now wants taxpayers to foot the bill for a legal battle resulting from him and certain reps disregard for the voters’ wishes.
On second thought, the Webster dictionary defines hate as an “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury”. I for one am fearful of the implications of things our city manager, certain city reps, and other “leaders” are doing. Yes, I’m angry. I do believe taxpayers and our city are being injured by the actions of those in power. I also have an aversion to politicians and bureaucrats who cater to special interests. So, if those feelings qualify as hatred technically and literally, so be it. Okay, you got me. Guilty as charged. Feel better? That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m wrong to feel the way I do.
The rights of others to voice opinions on this blog, however, in no way prevents you from advancing a counter argument or disagreeing with the opinions of others.
P.S. – At least the writers and those who comment on this blog refrain from using the profanity found on certain other local blogs, which try to use cheeky humor to mask their “hatred”.
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It’s interesting how anyone who opposes the current ruling faction’s agenda is labeled in such derisive terms used sometimes by the public officials themselves and their prominent supporters. One is either a “hater” or a “naysayer” or “standing in the way of progress” or simply “crazies.” Guess one can never be within our constitutional right to dissent or petition our government for redress or simply, push for a different outcome from something that affects our lives an our livelihood publicly. By the way, labeling the opposition is the stuff of fascists and other totalitarian and often brutal regimes.That is how they always begin their campaigns for control. Am I exagerating? Remember how the QOL: El Paso Tomorrow (?) PAC flashed black and white images of elected officials and PRIVATE citizens speaking out against the ballpark, ridiculing them, casting them in a negative light and tarnishing their reputations to gain advantage for its agenda. Case in point. Intimidate and publicly humiliate the opposition using our power and might.
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I was asked to post this by a reader.
Chucoleaks attorney Bill Aleshire issued this statement in response to Cato’s recent post on the City Charter:
It’s possible that the election could be challenged (or enjoined) if there is more than one subject on a single proposition. But there can be multiple parts of a single “subject.” Below is the basic court-adopted criteria for what constitutes a “subject.” So, now, looking at the ballot in this light, is there a common unifying “subject” for each set of items within each proposition? It looks to me like the courts interpret “subject” pretty broadly in this context, e.g., “elections” could be a subject: But, if the Council tries to combine 2 or more “subjects” (that would not pass individually) in a single proposition, that could be the basis for a “more-than-one-subject” challenge. (see the clips from case law before, particularly that one purpose of the Constitutional prohibition is “to prevent combinations, whereby would be concentrated the votes of the friends of different measures, none of which could pass singly; thus causing each bill to stand on its own merits”)
In the case of O’Leary v. Cook County, 28 Ill. 534, the word “subject” is declared to signify “the thing forming the groundwork. It may contain many particulars which grow out of it, and are germane to it, and which, if traced back, will lead the mind to it as the generic head. For instance, in legislation the incorporation of a bank, * * * college, etc., the subject, and such particulars, as will be subservient to such an incorporation, are germane to it, and properly included in the law.” In the cases of Breen v. Ry. Co., 44 Tex. 305, and Howth v. Greer, 40 Tex. Civ. App. 552, 90 S. W. 211, it is held that it is a sufficient compliance with this provision of the Constitution (meaning one subject), if the law has one general subject which is fairly indicated by its title, though it may embrace different subjects which are connected with or appropriate for the accomplishment of this general object.
It is held in the case of Tadlock v. Eccles, 20 Tex. 792, 73 Am. Dec. 213, that the intention*237 of this provision of the Constitution was to prevent embracing in one act, having one ostensible object, provisions having no relevancy to that object, but really designed to effect other and wholly different objects, and thus to conceal and disguise the real object proposed by the provisions of the act, under a false or deceptive title. In support of the above rule of construction the following authorities are cited: Duncan v. Taylor, 63 Tex. 645; Borden v. Rice & Irrigation Co., 98 Tex. at page 507, 86 S. W. 11, 107 Am. St. Rep. 640……
In determining whether a bill includes more than one subject, both the constitutional provision and the statute under consideration are to be liberally construed in favor of constitutionality. Robinson v. Hill, 507 S.W.2d 521 (Tex.1974); *601 Central Education Agency v. Independent School District of City of El Paso, 152 Tex. 56, 254 S.W.2d 357 (1953). The statute will be up-held where its provisions relate, directly or indirectly, to the same general subject, and have a mutual connection.
The term “subject,” used in section 35 of article 3 of the present Constitution, and the term “object” in the like sections of former Constitutions and construed in the cases just cited, are at least substantially synonymous. Indeed, it is plainly inferable that the term “subject” is less restrictive than the term “object.” In the case of Stone v. Brown, 54 Tex. 341, our Supreme Court, in construing the section of the Constitution now under consideration, had this to say:
“The Constitution provides that ‘no bill *** shall contain more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.’ Const. 1876, art. 3, § 35. It may be worthy of note that in the preceding Constitution the word ‘object’ was used instead of the word ‘subject,’ in the above connection. Const. 1845, art. 7, § 24; Const. 1866, art. 7, § 24; Const. 1869, art. 12, § 17. It may be presumed that the convention had some reason for substituting a different word from that which had been so long in use in this connection; and that, in the light of judicial expressions, the word ‘subject’ may have been thus substituted as less restrictive than ‘object.’
“In People v. Lawrence, 36 Barb. 192, the Supreme Court of New York say: ‘It must not be overlooked that the Constitution demands that the title of an act shall express the subject, not the object, of the act. It is the matter to which the statute relates and with which it deals, and not what it proposes to do, which is to be found in the title. It is no constitutional objection to a statute that its title is vague or unmeaning as to its purpose, if it be sufficiently distinct as to the matter to which it refers.’
“The principal object of this constitutional provision is to advise the Legislature and the people of the nature of each particular bill, so as to prevent the insertion of obnoxious clauses, which otherwise might be ingrafted thereupon and become the law, and also to prevent combinations, whereby would be concentrated the votes of the friends of different measures, none of which could pass singly; thus causing each bill to stand on its own merits. Cooley’s Const. Lim. (4th Ed.) 173; Giddings v. San Antonio, 47 Tex. 555 [26 Am. Rep. 321]; *628 Albrecht v. State, 8 Tex. App. 216 [34 Am. Rep. 737].”
The view so expressed was approved by our Court of Criminal Appeals in Ex parte Hernan, 45 Tex. Cr. R. 343, 77 S. W. 225; and in the case of Stone v. Brown, supra, the court cites numerous authorities tending to show the liberality with which the section of the Constitution under consideration is to be construed.
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