JUSTICE DEVINE delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this election contest, we consider whether a ballot proposition for a proposed city charter amendment meets the common law standard preserving the integrity of the ballot. The court of appeals upheld the proposition in this case. 383 S.W.3d 557, 571 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2012). Even though the ballot did not make clear that the amendment imposed charges directly on many voters, the court concluded it still described the amendment's character and purpose and enabled voters to distinguish it from other propositions on the ballot. See id. at 566. In so doing, the court departed from the applicable standard, which requires that proposed amendments be submitted with such definiteness and certainty that voters are not misled. Though the ballot need not reproduce the text of the amendment or mention every detail, it must substantially identify the amendment's purpose, character, and chief features. Widespread charges are such a chief feature. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.
A narrow majority of voters in the City of Houston adopted an amendment to their City Charter creating a "Dedicated Pay-As-You-Go Fund for Drainage and Streets." The amendment — approved in the November 2, 2010 election — required the City to obtain funding from several sources. One source was drainage charges to be imposed on properties benefitting from the drainage system.
Shortly after the election, several voters (the "Contestants")
This is an election contest with special jurisdictional considerations. The court of appeals' decision in an election contest is generally final. TEX. GOV'T CODE § 22.225(b)(2). There are exceptions, however, such as when "one of the courts of appeals holds differently from a prior decision of another court of appeals or of the supreme court." Id. §§ 22.001(a)(2); 22.225(c). Courts hold differently from each other "when there is inconsistency in their respective decisions that should be clarified to remove unnecessary uncertainty in the law and unfairness to litigants." Id. § 22.225(e). As discussed in more detail below, the decisions of the courts of appeals conflict regarding the common law standard for describing a measure on the ballot. This inconsistency should be clarified, and we have jurisdiction.
The parties dispute whether the ballot sufficiently described the charter amendment when it did not mention that drainage charges would be imposed.
The common law protects the integrity of the election with a minimum standard for the ballot language, but the parties disagree over what the standard requires. In 1888, we held that the proposition must "substantially submit[] the question . . . with such definiteness and certainty that the voters are not misled." Reynolds Land & Cattle Co. v. McCabe, 72 Tex. 57, 12 S.W. 165, 165 (1888).
The Contestants assert that the ballot must do more than merely enable voters to identify and distinguish the different propositions from each other, as the court below, 383 S.W.3d at 566, and some other courts of appeals have held, see, e.g., Hardy, 849 S.W.2d at 358; Hill, 414 S.W.2d at 692. Instead, it must "substantially submit" the amendment with "definiteness and certainty." See Reynolds Land & Cattle Co., 12 S.W. at 165. The ballot in this case should have mentioned the drainage charges required by the amendment; by ignoring the charges, the ballot obscured the amendment's "chief features" and its "character and purpose."
The City responds that because of election notices and publication requirements, voters are presumed to be familiar with the measure before the election. See Sterling Oil & Ref. Co., 218 S.W.2d at 418. The ballot need not educate voters about what they are already familiar with; it need only identify and distinguish which proposition refers to which measure so
It is true that voters are presumed to be familiar with every measure on the ballot.
But how must the ballot identify the measure? Does anything go as long as the voters will manage to distinguish the different propositions on the ballot and which measures they refer to? Our jurisprudence indicates otherwise. Many cases have stated that the proposition must substantially submit the measure, name its chief features, or describe its character and purpose, without even mentioning whether the election involved other propositions needing to be distinguished.
A measure may be identified in many ways, but not all suit the ballot. News commentary might identify it by popular title. Local officials could refer to it by a number. Special interest groups may discuss it by reference to details that incidentally impact them but nonetheless fall short of being "chief features." Citizens may discuss it in any number of ways. But, on the ballot, the identification must be formal and sure; it must capture the measure's essence. Implicit in the common law standard is that though neither the entire measure nor its every detail need be on the ballot, the importance and formality of an election still demand a threshold level of detail. The common law standard prevents confusion at the ballot box over measures voters are already familiar with by ensuring that propositions identify measures for what they are. In other words, though voters are presumed to be already familiar with measures before reaching the voting booth, they can still be misled by an incomplete ballot description. Given the importance of the
In an election contest challenging the sufficiency of the ballot description, the issue is whether the ballot "substantially submits the question . . . with such definiteness and certainty that the voters are not misled." Reynolds Land & Cattle Co., 12 S.W. at 165. An inadequate description may fail to do that in either of two ways. First, it may affirmatively misrepresent the measure's character and purpose or its chief features. Second, it may mislead the voters by omitting certain chief features that reflect its character and purpose. The common law standard thus requires that the ballot identify the measure for what it is, and a description that does either of the foregoing fails to comply with the standard. The common law safeguards the election, preventing voters from being misled and ensuring that the ballot substantially submits the measure.
Accordingly, we disapprove of language suggesting that the ballot need only "direct[] [the voter] to the amendment so that he can discern its identity and distinguish it from other propositions on the ballot."
Here, the ballot stated that the amendment would create a pay-as-you-go fund for drainage and streets. But the ballot did not identify a central aspect of the amendment: the drainage charges to be imposed on benefitting real property owners across the city. Such charges imposed directly on most residents of Houston are a chief feature of the amendment, part of the amendment's character and purpose. Merely stating that a fund is being established provides little definiteness or certainty about something important to the people — will they directly pay for it? Because the ballot did not mention the charges, it fell short of identifying the measure for what it is — a funding mechanism and fiscal burden on benefitting property owners. Failing to identify something for what it is can be misleading, even for those presumed to be familiar with it. Again, not every detail need be on the ballot, and short, general descriptions are often acceptable. But when the citizens must fund the measure out of their own pockets, this is a chief feature that should be on the ballot, and its omission was misleading.
Though our past decisions demonstrate that municipalities generally have broad discretion in wording propositions, they do not suggest that this discretion is unlimited. For example, in Reynolds Land & Cattle Co., voters adopted a tax to fund new school buildings and supplement the state school fund. 12 S.W. at 165-66. The official order of election merely queried whether taxes "shall be levied for school purposes" without mentioning the specific purposes of building schools and supplementing the state fund. Id. at 165. Nonetheless, the order still "substantially submit[ted] the question . . . with such definiteness and certainty that the voters [were] not misled." Id. at 165-66. Similarly, in City of Austin v. Austin Gas-Light & Coal Co., the electorate approved "a special additional annual tax" to help fund Austin public schools. 69 Tex. 180, 7 S.W. 200, 204 (1887). We rejected arguments
Our 1949 decision in Sterling Oil & Refining Co. likewise demonstrates that some details may be omitted from the ballot description, but it does not suggest that the proposition may fail to substantially submit the measure. Texas voters amended the constitution, empowering the Legislature to authorize direct appeals to this Court in certain cases. 218 S.W.2d at 416; see also TEX. CONST. Art. V, § 3-b. The ballot had disclosed that direct appeals could be allowed in cases involving the constitutionality of laws and regulatory orders, but it had not mentioned that direct appeals could also be authorized in cases regarding the validity of a regulatory order on grounds other than the constitution. Id. at 416-17. Nonetheless, the description was sufficient. Id. at 418. The pre-election notices ensured the voters were "familiar with the amendment and its purposes when they cast their ballots." Id. Thus, the ballot omitted technical information about some types of direct appeals that could be authorized, but it still described the chief features of the amendment. In contrast, in this case, the ballot withheld a central component of the charter amendment — the drainage charges — essential to the character of the amendment.
The City notes that only twice have courts of appeals sided against the governing authority in disputes over ballot language. See McAllen Police Officers Union, 221 S.W.3d at 895; Turner, 201 S.W.2d at 91. Yet, importantly, almost none of the cases upholding an election involved a proposition that did not mention widespread charges against the citizenry.
The City emphasizes that one court of civil appeals once upheld a six-word proposition submitting an entire city charter to a vote, see England, 269 S.W.2d at 816, and that another held that the two words "maintenance tax" sufficiently described a school-tax measure, see Wright, 520 S.W.2d at 790, 792. Texas law, however, now prevents the entire charter from being submitted to voters as a whole; instead, the charter shall be prepared "so that to the extent practicable each subject may be voted on separately." TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE § 9.003(c). This statutory requirement reflects what the common law has always been — that the measure should be substantially submitted with definiteness and certainty to the voters. And, though mere use of the two words "maintenance tax" is suspect, at least it acknowledged the direct fiscal impact to citizens — something that the ballot in the present case failed to do. In neither of these cases did the governing authority omit such a central feature as in this case. In neither case did the governing authority so clearly fail to substantially submit the measure with such definiteness and certainty that voters would not be misled.
Thus, both we and the courts of appeals have generally upheld ballot descriptions identifying the character and purpose of the proposition. Schools and taxes. Direct appeals. Waterworks and bonds. But the proposition in this case contrasts sharply with the others — it did not mention the drainage charges to be imposed on most real property owners across the city. Because the proposition omitted a chief feature — part of the character and purpose — of the measure, it did not substantially submit the measure with such definiteness and certainty that voters would not be misled. Accordingly, the proposition was inadequate, and summary judgment should not have been granted in the City's favor.
In reaching this conclusion, we do not consider the Contestant's evidence that some voters were subjectively confused about the nature of the measure. Those who oppose election results will always be able to find voters who claim to have been misled. Admittedly, some court of appeals decisions have suggested that such evidence may be considered.
In an amicus brief, the Texas Municipal League and Texas City Attorneys Association urge that home rule cities should look first to their charter, not the common law, for the standard governing ballot language. Notably, although the Houston charter provides no means for amending the charter, the Texas Local Government Code does. See TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE § 9.004(a). Moreover, the Texas Election Code, not the City's charter, authorizes election contests. See TEX. ELEC. CODE § 233.001. Accordingly, state statutes and common law govern this dispute. Our common law prohibits the City from submitting such an amendment to the voters without disclosing on the ballot that many of them will pay for it out of their own pockets.
The City did not adequately describe the chief features — the character and purpose — of the charter amendment on the ballot. By omitting the drainage charges, it failed to substantially submit the measure with such definiteness and certainty that voters would not be misled. Accordingly, summary judgment should not have been granted in the City's favor. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals, and, because only the City moved for summary judgment, remand to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Justice Guzman filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Willett joined.
Justice Brown did not participate in the decision.
JUSTICE GUZMAN, joined by
JUSTICE WILLETT, concurring.
I agree with the Court that the language of the ballot proposition was sufficiently uncertain and indefinite as to be potentially misleading. I further agree that by not describing the nature of the drainage charges, the ballot language omitted a chief feature of the proposition, thereby violating the common-law standard governing ballot clarity. I write separately to indicate my confidence in the continued viability of the common-law standard as it applies to ballot questions and to underscore its particular utility in the context of revenue-raising ballot propositions.
Texas has long required a baseline degree of precision in ballot language. In 1888, we held that a ballot question must be submitted "with such definiteness and certainty that the voters are not misled." Reynolds Land & Cattle Co. v. McCabe, 72 Tex. 57, 12 S.W. 165, 165 (1888). Decades later, a Texas appellate court held that a ballot proposition had to state the measure's "chief features" so as to indicate its "character and purpose." See Turner v. Lewie, 201 S.W.2d 86, 91 (Tex. Civ. App.-Fort Worth 1947, writ dism'd) (citing 18 AM. JUR. § 180 at 298 (1939), collecting cases, and deriving "chief features" language from In re Opinion of the Justices, 271 Mass. 582, 171 N.E. 294, 297 (1930)). Though not the sole articulation of the law in this context, these standards form the essential contours of our ballot-language jurisprudence involving questions of this nature.
In the City's accommodating view, the chief-features test essentially means ballot language must be specific enough to permit a voter to distinguish one proposition from another on the ballot. This concept is frequently traced back to Hill v. Evans,
Take, for example, a ballot featuring multiple questions on dramatically different topics. With very little thematic overlap, even a cursory description of the varying questions could serve to differentiate one from another and would thus serve to identify each as distinct. But identification hardly guarantees that the same cursory definition would accurately describe the chief features of the ballot question. Better yet, put aside the theoretical and simply take the present case. In addition to the drainage-fund proposition at issue here, the November 2010 ballot also contained propositions addressing the terms of residency for Houston's elected officials and the use of red-light cameras in the city. Even a substantially less thorough description of the drainage-fund proposition than the inadequate one the City provided would nonetheless identify the drainage-fund question as distinct from the red-light-camera or residency questions. But again, such a pithy description would hardly ensure that the measure's chief features are described or meet the standard we have required for more than a century: A ballot proposition must be written with such definiteness and certainty that the voters are not misled. Reynolds, 12 S.W. at 165. Providing only enough information on a ballot to allow propositions to be distinguished from one another is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient. To satisfy the chief-features requirement, more than mere identification is required. Therefore, I agree with the Court that the City's argument to the contrary is unpersuasive, and I would overrule decisions from the courts of appeals to the extent they suggest the ballot need only enable voters to identify and distinguish the different propositions from one another. See, e.g., Dacus v. Parker, 383 S.W.3d 557, 566 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2012); Hardy v. Hannah, 849 S.W.2d 355, 358 (Tex.App.-Austin 1992, writ denied); Hill, 414 S.W.2d at 692.
The City's semantic obfuscation is particularly egregious here, considering that the ballot proposition at issue concerned a revenue-raising measure. The City refers to this — perhaps euphemistically — as a drainage "charge" to be paid into a "dedicated pay-as-you-go fund." Before this Court, the parties disputed whether this charge was in fact tantamount to a "fee" or a "tax." If the drainage charges involved here are not a tax, they at least bear some of its hallmarks. See TracFone Wireless, Inc. v. Comm'n on State Emergency Commc'ns, 397 S.W.3d 173, 175 n. 3 (Tex. 2013) ("A charge is a fee rather than a tax when the primary purpose of the fee is to support a regulatory regime governing those who pay the fee."); Hurt v. Cooper, 130 Tex. 433, 110 S.W.2d 896, 899 (1937) (noting that where a fee's "primary purpose. . . is the raising of revenue, then such fees are in fact . . . taxes . . . regardless of the name by which they are designated"). But whatever the true nature of the "charge" here, I find it difficult to conceive of a scenario in which a revenue-raising measure would be an element of a proposition and yet not constitute one of its chief features. To be sure, voters are presumed to have knowledge of the features and issues contained on a ballot. But that presumption does not absolve the City of the responsibility to fairly and fully portray a revenue-raising measure on the ballot, and the fact that the complete text is published in a newspaper before the
Direct democracy is of paramount importance to the citizens of this State. In perhaps no other area of self-government is the citizen brought closer to the legislative process. A fact issue exists as to whether the City's ballot language omitted a chief feature of a measure and thereby deprived voters of the opportunity to make a fully informed decision. Accordingly, I respectfully concur in the Court's decision to remand to the trial court for further proceedings.
Hill v. Evans, 414 S.W.2d 684, 696 (Tex.Civ. App.-Austin 1967, writ ref'd n.r.e.) (Hughes, J., dissenting).