In RE JEFFERY BOWEN; 3rd Court of Appeals District

Supreme Court of Texas
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No. 25-0754
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In re Jeffery Bowen,
Relator

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On Petition for Writ of Mandamus
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Statement of JUSTICE YOUNG respecting the denial of the petition
for writ of mandamus.

The Austin City Council’s 2025–2026 budget can be funded only
with a steep tax increase, which implicates two provisions of state law.
First, the tax hike is sufficiently high that it can take effect only upon
voter approval. See Tex. Tax Code § 26.07(b). To comply with this
requirement, the City’s voters will approve or reject the proposed tax
increase in an election this November. That election implicates the
second state-law requirement: that the City use a specific form for the
ballot language. See id. § 26.07(c). Among other things, the City must
specify the tax increase’s purpose. Id. As always, the ballot language
must be accurate and not misleading. See, e.g., In re Dallas HERO, 698
S.W.3d 242, 247–48 (Tex. 2024); In re Petricek, 629 S.W.3d 913, 919
(Tex. 2021); In re Durnin, 619 S.W.3d 250, 253 (Tex. 2021); Dacus v.
Parker, 466 S.W.3d 820, 826 (Tex. 2015). The legislature recently codified
this jurisprudence and has provided additional new requirements. See
Act of May 30, 2025, 89th Leg., R.S., S.B. 506 (2025).
Relator contends that the ballot language violates the law’s
minimum standards. The question is close. The City’s lengthy purpose
statement includes a laundry list of programs and then tacks on a catchall
provision: “and provide for other general fund maintenance and operation
expenditures included in the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget as approved
or amended by City Council.” In other words, what the new revenue
ultimately does is increase the City’s general budget; it does not, for
example, deal with some unforeseen and unbudgeted event, such as a
natural disaster or a large monetary judgment against the City. The
risk is that a sweeping catchall paired with a loosely defined purpose may
obscure what a city’s increased revenue will actually cover. Cities might
cherry-pick popular initiatives to list on the ballot but mostly spend
increased tax revenue on other programs. Here, however, it appears that
the City has allocated a meaningful portion of the increased revenue to
the specifically enumerated programs.
Yet the effect of a voter-approved tax increase goes beyond funding
a particular year’s budget, even though the election directly concerns only
whether voters approve the adopted tax rate for the specific year. Each
year, a city must calculate its “voter-approval tax rate,” Tex. Tax Code
§ 26.04(c), which in significant part depends on the revenue generated
from taxes levied the previous year, id. § 26.04(c)(2). That is, a larger tax-
rate increase this year—and its accompanying higher tax revenues—
affects future tax rates because the voter-approval tax rate “provides
cities and counties with about the same amount of tax revenue it spent

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the previous year . . . plus an extra three and a half percent,” Tex.
Comptroller of Pub. Accts., Truth-In-Taxation: Tax Rate Adoption,
https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/truth-in-taxation, and
additional future elections are required only if the City Council seeks a
higher rate for additional tax revenue beyond that amount, Tex. Tax
Code § 26.07(b). A big tax hike in one year thus can have a significant
compounding effect in later years—a consequence that state law allows.
(The City responds, perhaps more as a matter of theory than practice,
that it might lower taxes in future years.)
Telling voters that this tax increase will fund the 2025–2026
budget is therefore not technically wrong. But it is also easy to see how
ballot language that is not exactly false can nonetheless edge toward or
proceed past the line separating technically accurate and misleading.
Particularly given the high burden to obtain mandamus, I cannot
say that the Court is wrong to deny relief here. Denying mandamus
today constitutes no precedent and is no endorsement (and of course no
condemnation) of this ballot language. It bears repeating that “this
Court’s failure to grant a petition for writ of mandamus is not an
adjudication of, nor even a comment on, the merits of a case in any
respect, including whether mandamus relief was available.” In re AIU
Ins. Co., 148 S.W.3d 109, 119 (Tex. 2004). It may well become necessary
for the Court to provide further guidance about the minimum standards
for ballot language in the context of soliciting and deploying the People’s
hard-earned money. Before doing so, the Court (and the public) will
benefit from seeing if the new legislation, which is not the subject of the
parties’ briefing, clarifies this area of the law. And if the legislature

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concludes that cities are just barely complying with today’s legal
requirements, or are doing so in name only, or are given inadequate
guidance by current law, it is always free to impose heightened
substantive or procedural mandates for tax-increase elections—or indeed
to otherwise regulate or restrict cities’ authority to tax and spend.
But this proposed tax increase must be determined by the voters
of Austin, with both proponents and opponents of the City Council’s
proposal having every opportunity to make their case—including, if they
wish, by debating the propriety of the City Council’s chosen ballot
language.

Evan A. Young
Justice

STATEMENT FILED: September 12, 2025

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