Dallas City Council approved 21 propositions that will appear on the ballot when voters head to the polls this November, including one that could impact election dates.
Some of the larger propositions that will be considered include reform of marijuana enforcement, raises for city council members and the mayor, and the implementation of term limits for city council members and the mayor.
Proposition 4 would eliminate the requirement that City Council elections take place in May to allow the city to move them to November, which is becoming more common across the country.
The amendment was written by David de la Fuente who served on the charter review commission for District 1. It failed at the commission level but Council Member Chad West brought it back up to council and tweaked the language. It passed council 9-6 and will be on the ballot this November.
Fuente lives in Winnetka Heights, and this is the only charter amendment written by a resident of North Oak Cliff.
“I started thinking about this back in 2021 because back then I was volunteering on Chad West’s reelection campaign, and you’d knock on a door in April and people just didn’t even realize an election was going on,” Fuente said. “I started looking into this, and then I found that actually former Mayor Mike Rawlings, who was the mayor before Eric Johnson, actually attempted this back when he was mayor, to get the election out of May and into November, which is becoming a lot more common in Texas and across the country.”
The charter currently says the election must take place in May, and the amendment would take out this requirement.
“If this passes in November, the city will go to the state government and ask for what is called a bracketed law, and the state is almost certainly going to grant it, because it always does,” Fuente said. “Once the state law clearly allows it, the council would go back in and move the election to November starting in 2027.”
Fuente said out of all of the charter proposals, this will probably be the most impactful on citizens lives.
“People are asked to vote too often,” Fuente said. “Here in Oak Cliff from May of 2023 to November of 2024, in that two year cycle, Oak Cliff residents are being asked to vote six times, which is just an excessive amount, and that that creates voter fatigue.”
Fuente said moving the election from May to November would help decrease voter fatigue and give people breathing room to settle after the presidential election. They would then have about a year before they have to go back and vote for council.
He also added that if the city moves to November, it would save hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. He said his understanding is that of the proposals, it’s the only one that, if implemented, would save taxpayer money.
“If the city were to move the election from May to November, the city would probably save around $430,000 every election, which then goes back into the general fund,” Fuente said.
