A state appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit in which Anna and more than two dozen other Texas cities tried to overturn the 2023 law that lets landowners take their property out of a city's extraterritorial jurisdiction, and the Anna City Council has put the ruling on its closed-session agenda for Tuesday, Oct. 27.
The Fifteenth Court of Appeals affirmed a Travis County district court's order in a memorandum opinion issued Oct. 15. Chief Justice Scott Brister wrote the opinion for a three-justice panel that also included Justices Field and Farris. The trial court had granted the state's plea to the jurisdiction and dismissed the case without prejudice.
How Anna got involved
The extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ, is the unincorporated area next to a city where it can enforce some rules, such as those for plats and subdivisions. Senate Bill 2038, passed in 2023, created two ways out: a petition signed by enough owners or residents of an area, or a release election.
According to the opinion, Grand Prairie sued the state after receiving two release petitions in September 2023. Twenty other cities that had also received petitions joined the suit, and Anna and Bonham entered it as intervenors. Other plaintiffs named in the case include McKinney, Denton, Denison, Van Alstyne, College Station and Aubrey, along with the Aubrey Municipal Development District.
The defendants were the State of Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, Comptroller Don Huffines and the comptroller's office.
What the court decided
The panel ruled that the cities had not pleaded a valid claim that would get past the state's sovereign immunity, and it did not reach the standing question. It rejected each argument in turn:
- that the law conflicts with an older section of the Local Government Code requiring a city's written consent before its ETJ shrinks
- that it lets private citizens exercise legislative power
- that it is unconstitutionally vague about how to count a "majority in value" of landowners
- that it denies neighboring owners notice and a chance to be heard
- that it violates equal protection, the contracts clause or the ban on local or special laws
- that requiring a city to pay for a release election is a gift of public funds
