A Travis County judge has issued a court order temporarily blocking 13 Austin local charter amendments from voting on several key voting deadlines in the Nov. 5 general election.
The order to cease further action is temporary and expires on September 5. A court hearing is currently scheduled for Thursday, August 29 at 9 a.m.
The temporary restraining order issued Thursday by state District Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle stems from a lawsuit filed by the Save Our Springs Alliance against the Austin City Council, alleging that the city violated the Texas Open Meetings Act when it placed the list of proposed charter changes on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The lawsuit was filed earlier this week by attorney Bill Aleshire on behalf of the Alliance, a nonprofit environmental organization, its executive director Bill Bunch, and Joe Riddell, a former attorney for the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Aleshire is a former Travis County judge. The lawsuit was filed on the last day that Texas municipalities could order elections.
It alleges that the city’s governing body violated both the law’s citizen participation and public notice provisions when it approved the election at a hearing last Wednesday because all of the proposed changes were grouped together in one agenda item rather than addressed individually.
This limited the amount of time a person could talk about the changes and did not provide adequate public notice of what the changes would entail, the lawsuit says.
Proposed charter changes include increasing the minimum number of signatures required to recall a council member from 10% of registered voters in the council member’s district to 15%, giving the council the power to appoint and remove the city attorney, and requiring that citizen-initiated and citizen-initiated charter elections be held in the November general election in even-numbered years.
When DeSeta Lyttle delivered her ruling during the emergency hearing, she agreed with the nonprofit that the City Council had “insufficiently announced” its August 14 meeting to “approve the election ordinance.”
“The Court also finds that plaintiffs are likely to suffer irreparable harm because, given the looming deadlines to prepare ballots for a November 5, 2024 election, ballots may be prepared and mailed before plaintiffs’ claims can be adjudicated in district court,” DeSeta Lyttle said, adding that unless a preliminary injunction is granted, the Nov. 5 election on the charter changes would take place without the City Council having “strictly complied” with parts of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
“The judge said everything that needed to be said,” Aleshire told the American-Statesman after Thursday’s emergency hearing. “If they were to hold the election, it would be illegal because they violated the Open Meetings Act by calling it.”
A spokesman for the city of Austin said the city could not immediately comment on the ruling Thursday.
City spokesman David Ochsner issued a statement to the American-Statesman on Monday regarding the original lawsuit: “After a lengthy and arduous charter amendment process that included numerous opportunities for public participation, we are aware of the lawsuit filed by SOS today challenging the August 14 charter amendment election ordinance. The city stands by the process used.”
Clark Richards, an attorney representing the city of Austin and the Austin City Council, said during Thursday’s pre-ruling hearing that the city did not violate the state’s open meetings law and that the order, even if temporary, would deprive citizens of the right to vote on the charter changes because it would interfere with the ability to meet important voting deadlines in September.
Those deadlines include, among others, the September 5 deadline for correcting ballots in Travis County and the September 20 deadline for mailing absentee and military ballot materials, according to a presentation by Richards and his legal counsel during the hearing.
“If the court issues a temporary restraining order, none of these deadlines can be met,” Richards said during the hearing before the order was issued.
Aleshire pointed out that the deadline for final voting in Hays and Williamson counties is Friday, August 30, the day after the scheduled court hearing.
