Defenders of Texas cities say the 2019 Texas Legislature may rank as the most serious threat to local control in the state’s history.
“City officials are under unprecedented attack at the Capitol,” the Texas Municipal League advised its members in a recent legislative update. “You are being publicly painted as the enemy of your own residents. According to many legislators, your actions are an affront to liberty and property rights.”
Among the legislation Republican lawmakers have pushed is Senate Bill 29, which would eliminate the TML as a lobbying organization. The bill would have forbidden the use of taxpayer funds to advocate for or against legislation in Austin. Although the bill was returned to committee last week, it resurfaced Sunday night in an
In the current session, the TML has opposed 150 bills, including the one that would virtually outlaw the organization. With the 2019 session in its last week, lawmakers and lobbyists are watching like hawks as maneuvers take place behind the scenes.
Sunday was the deadline for a Senate bill to be placed on the House calendar, followed by a Tuesday deadline for Senate bill passage in the House.
The Texas Association of School Boards calls SB 29 a denial of First Amendment rights to school board trustees, who are often unpaid for their service, and who come to Austin for a lobby day to meet lawmakers. TASB contends it is a more efficient use of resources for school districts to pay TASB staff to wait for hours to testify for two or three minutes on legislation rather than having district personnel and trustees travel to Austin, find lodging, pay for meals, etc.
Under the amendment introduced Sunday night, only cities and counties would be prohibited from lobbying.
The Republican-controlled Legislature has sought to limit local regulations and ordinances for years, particularly those affecting the oil and gas industry, such as local petition-driven initiatives to regulate fracking in residential areas.
In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 40, known as the “Denton Fracking Bill” that “expressly pre-empts regulation of oil and gas operations by municipalities and other political subdivisions.” The bill was introduced after the city of Denton passed regulations banning fracking in the city limits.
Democrat Sylvester Turner, then a state representative from Houston and now the city’s mayor, called HB 40 “a gold mine for lawyers.”
As mayor, Turner has faced frequent attacks from state Sen. Charles Bettencourt, R-Houston, who advocates lower property taxes as the state’s largest city struggles with property tax challenges from businesses in the city.
Commercial property values in Houston have increased nearly 40% over a five-year period ending in 2017, according to the Houston Building Owners and Managers Association. Property values increased from $24.4 billion in 2013 to $33.8 billion in 2017.
While homeowners can apply for a homestead exemption that provides a 10% year-over-year cap on property values increases, commercial property carries no valuation cap or requirement to disclose the sales price.
Commercial property owners can protest property values through the appraisal districts. If that fails, the owner can sue the appraisal district.
The average number of claims went from 2,600 filed annually from 2010 to 2012 to more than 4,100 claims a year from 2014 to 2016, according to the Houston Chronicle. Between 2012 and 2016, the cost of litigation for the Harris County Appraisal District increased by 66%, from $9.4 million to $15.6million, per the Chronicle. In 2016, Harris County, Houston and Houston Independent School District lost about $60 million in property tax collections due to successful lawsuits.
This year, Bettencourt authored Senate Bill 2, which originally aimed to limit property tax revenue growth to 2.5% per year, a sharp drop from the current 8%. In the legislative process, the cap was raised to 3.5% as House and Senate negotiators work out differences in the two versions of the bill.
Under current law, taxpayers have to petition for an election to roll back any tax revenue growth of more than 8%. The rising revenue comes from higher property values while the tax rate remains unchanged. Under the new legislation, the local government would be required to call an election if it wanted to keep revenues in excess of 3.5% growth.
Bettencourt is backed by Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonen in the fight. But Bettencourt parted company with “The Big Three” over House Joint Resolution 3, a measure that would have raised the state’s sales tax by 1% to allow reductions in property taxes supporting school districts.
Fearing that the voters would see the move as a tax increase rather than a tax swap, Bettencourt abandoned the effort and the sales tax increase is dead in this session.
Although Republican leaders frame their anti-local ordinance rhetoric as support for taxpayers, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, in a 2017 television interview, explained the political calculations behind the strategy.
“Where do we have all our problems in America?” Patrick asked “In our cities — that are mostly controlled by Democrat mayors and Democrat city councilmen and women. That's where you see liberal policies. That's where you see high taxes. That's where you see street crime."
While Republicans control the Legislature and every statewide office, Democrats have increasingly controlled the major cities.
Republican lawmakers have thwarted local ordinances over plastic shopping bags, protection of trees and so-called “Sanctuary Cities” for unregistered immigrant residents.sident Donald Trump, with whom Patrick and Abbott are closely aligned, said he plans to send undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities as punishment for opposing his hard-line immigration policies.
Other measures that would hem in local governments include SB 1152, which would sharply cut the fees cities receive for use of city property by companies that provide both video and phone service.
House Bill 347 would eliminate unilateral annexation for cities in counties under 500,000 population. That would be similar to what legislation Senate Bill 6 did in the 2017 session to cities in counties with 500,000 or more population.
