# Busse v. S. Tex. Indep. Sch. Dist. Supreme Court of Texas, No. 24-0782 **Busse v. S. Tex. Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 24-0782 (Tex. May 8, 2026). Holding: The individual taxpayers have standing under the traditional three-part constitutional standing test because they allege a personal pocketbook injury traceable to STISD's levy and redressable by an injunction, so the court of appeals erred in dismissing their claims by applying taxpayer standing and a "disruption" rationale, but LCISD lacks standing.** Practice areas: governmental immunity, tax ## Key issues - Individual Willacy County taxpayers have standing to contest South Texas ISD's ad valorem tax, and the court of appeals erred by relying on a taxpayer-standing doctrine that does not fit their claim; a school district in the county lacks standing. - The Court remanded for the court of appeals to decide whether other jurisdictional hurdles bar the taxpayers' claims. ## Factual History Before federal law required public schools to educate students with disabilities, Texas enacted Education Code Chapter 26 authorizing counties to create "Rehabilitation Districts" to provide education, training, and special services for persons with disabilities, and the Rio Grande Rehabilitation District, created by Cameron County voters in 1963, was joined by Hidalgo County in 1964 and Willacy County in 1974 (Opinion, PDF pp. 2-3). The Willacy County order calling the 1974 election said the vote would authorize the district to levy ad valorem taxes at a rate not exceeding five cents per $100 of assessed valuation (Opinion, PDF p. 3). In 1983 the Legislature amended Chapter 26 to let rehabilitation districts offer vocational training to nonhandicapped students too, the district changed its name to South Texas Independent School District (STISD), and it has since expanded its purpose beyond students with disabilities, who now make up a negligible share of its student population (Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4). The plaintiffs allege that STISD now serves a different purpose than the one Willacy County voters approved in 1974 (Opinion, PDF p. 4). ## Procedural History A group of individual Willacy County taxpayers and Lyford Consolidated Independent School District (LCISD) sued for declarations that STISD's tax is unlawful and cannot be collected because it violates the "contract with the voters" doctrine under Article I, Section 16 and Article VII, Section 3(e) of the Texas Constitution, which requires voter approval of a school property tax (Opinion, PDF p. 4). STISD filed a plea to the jurisdiction, and the trial court denied it (Opinion, PDF pp. 4-5). The Thirteenth Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi-Edinburg) reversed and rendered judgment for STISD, holding that the taxpayers lacked taxpayer standing because their suit risked "disruption of government operations" and that LCISD alleged no concrete, redressable injury, and it did not reach STISD's alternative arguments that the claims are a nonjusticiable political question and barred by governmental immunity (Opinion, PDF p. 5). The vehicle in this Court is a petition for review filed by the taxpayers and LCISD, argued November 5, 2025, and decided May 8, 2026 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 5, 16). ## Issues Presented Petitioners present five issues, including whether STISD's property tax violates Article VII, Section 3(e) and the contract-with-the-voters doctrine, whether LCISD and the taxpayers have standing, and whether the court of appeals erred in finding no standing because the tax generates substantial revenue and has been collected for a long time (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF p. 14). STISD frames the issues as whether LCISD can show injury, traceability, and redressability, whether the taxpayers have taxpayer standing, and whether the claims are a political question or barred by immunity (Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF p. 13). ## Standard(s) of Review A plea to the jurisdiction may challenge the pleadings, the jurisdictional facts, or both; when it challenges the pleadings the Court asks whether the plaintiff affirmatively pleaded facts demonstrating jurisdiction, and when it challenges jurisdictional facts the standard mirrors summary judgment, taking as true all evidence favorable to the nonmovant (Opinion, PDF pp. 5-6). Standing requires an injury in fact that is concrete and particularized, traceability to the defendant's conduct, and redressability (Opinion, PDF pp. 6-8). ## Legal Arguments **Whether the individual taxpayers have standing.** **Taxpayers and LCISD (Petitioners):** The court of appeals erred in holding that no petitioner had standing to challenge collection of a property tax that was never approved by voters as Article VII, Section 3(e) requires, which insulates a constitutional violation from review, and the taxpayers also have standing under *Bland ISD v. Blue*, which lets taxpayers enjoin illegal expenditures without showing a distinct injury (Reply Brief (Petitioner), PDF p. 5). They add that the court of appeals relied on school finance law rather than the statute governing rehabilitation districts in finding a disruption (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 10). **STISD (Respondent):** The taxpayers invoke taxpayer standing, which is a limited exception that requires an illegal expenditure of public funds, and STISD continues to fulfill its purpose by educating both special-education and other students; under *Bland* the suit would also substantially disrupt obligations STISD has incurred in reliance on the tax (Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF p. 13; Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF p. 13). **Whether LCISD has standing.** **LCISD (Petitioner):** STISD's tax creates an unequal funding landscape harming LCISD (Opinion, PDF p. 13). **STISD (Respondent):** LCISD admitted its taxing authority is independent of STISD's, so its inability to persuade voters to pay more is not an injury traceable to STISD or redressable by the Court (Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF p. 32). ## Stated Reasons the Court Should Take the Case The petitioners argued that STISD is an anachronism, an obsolete rehabilitation district that the Legislature expanded to provide education and funded like public schools, and that the court of appeals' standing ruling effectively insulates an unapproved school property tax from review (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 21; Reply Brief (Petitioner), PDF p. 5). ## Oral Argument - **Prohibition or exclusive use.** Asked if lacking a prohibition is a merits question, not standing, the respondent's counsel said no; taxpayer standing has always required a prohibition or exclusive-use provision. (Oral Argument, 0:24:27; 0:25:26) - **Illegal expenditure.** Asked why a tax is not illegal to collect if illegal to spend, the respondent's counsel said *Jones* is the illegal-expenditure case: a properly approved tax used in unlawful ways. (Oral Argument, 0:30:00) - **Whole county.** Asked whether an injunction would run only to the 16 taxpayers, petitioners' counsel said the tax is unlawful for the whole county and that she also represents the district. (Oral Argument, 0:41:44) - **Special election.** Asked if the commissioners court could call a ratifying election, petitioners' counsel said she saw no statutory authority; former chapter 26 did not contemplate what happens next. (Oral Argument, 0:37:01) - **Federal law.** Asked about the district educating only special education students, the respondent's counsel said petitioners want it to violate federal least-restrictive-environment requirements. (Oral Argument, 0:30:55) - **Special education limiter.** Asked if the training and guidance of handicapped students is a limiter, the respondent's counsel agreed, but said the district has not stopped educating special education students. (Oral Argument, 0:28:26) - **Injunction against collection.** The respondent's counsel said petitioners had confessed they seek an injunction against collection based on a theory about expenditures. (Oral Argument, 0:17:10) ## Practice Area Tags governmental-immunity, tax ## Procedural Posture/Vehicle Petition for review from the Thirteenth Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi-Edinburg) after the denial of a plea to the jurisdiction; argued November 5, 2025, and decided May 8, 2026 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 5, 16). ## Amicus Involvement - [Abbigael Lucia McQuillen](https://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMedia.aspx?MediaVersionID=81a9688e-78ce-43ab-af08-fa0c7339c3bc&coa=cossup&DT=BRIEFS&MediaID=6f7f10fb-214f-4905-acc5-0f60ae4f66cb) filed an amicus brief, and [Pilar V. Espinosa and Mercedes S. Espinosa](https://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMedia.aspx?MediaVersionID=317b523a-e076-48b7-8a41-dc6e9aaba60b&coa=cossup&DT=BRIEFS&MediaID=0dc49365-af38-4d30-8af4-23a2affc0bd9) filed an amicus letter brief; ZZM of McAllen also filed an amicus brief and appendix. ## Holding The individual taxpayers have standing under the traditional three-part constitutional standing test because they allege a personal pocketbook injury traceable to STISD's levy and redressable by an injunction, so the court of appeals erred in dismissing their claims by applying taxpayer standing and a "disruption" rationale, but LCISD lacks standing (Opinion, PDF pp. 2, 7-15). ## Court's Reasoning **Taxpayers.** The taxpayers allege that STISD's unlawful tax causes each of them personal injury because they must pay it, an injury imminent because STISD decides each year whether to levy the tax, directly traceable to STISD's board's discretion to levy it, and redressable by an injunction barring the levy and collection (Opinion, PDF pp. 8, 11). The injury is particularized even though other county residents share it, and the Court has long recognized this kind of pocketbook injury as a quintessential injury in fact (Opinion, PDF pp. 8-9). STISD's argument that the tax is legal goes to the merits, and plaintiffs need not demonstrate at the standing stage that the challenged conduct was actually illegal (Opinion, PDF pp. 9-10). **Taxpayer standing was the wrong lens.** The doctrine of taxpayer standing applies when a plaintiff who lacks a particularized injury seeks to enjoin the illegal expenditure of public funds and has an exceedingly narrow scope, so resorting to it was unnecessary (Opinion, PDF pp. 10-11). The court of appeals' "significant disruption" reasoning improperly shifted the focus from the plaintiffs' stake at the time of filing to the suit's effect on the defendant and overread *Bland*, which involved a contract that had already been substantially performed (Opinion, PDF pp. 11-12). **LCISD.** LCISD's claimed injury, increased financial burden, double taxation, and a competitive disadvantage in recruiting, is speculative, and it is not traceable to STISD because LCISD admitted it can call an election to raise its own taxes at any time and that the Legislature controls school funding (Opinion, PDF pp. 13-14). LCISD's school-finance cases, in which districts challenged funds they received directly from the State, are not analogous (Opinion, PDF p. 15). **Remand.** Because the court of appeals did not reach STISD's alternative jurisdictional challenges, the Court remanded for it to decide them in the first instance (Opinion, PDF pp. 2, 15-16). **Concurrence.** Justice Young, joined by Justices Devine, Sullivan, and Hawkins, joined the opinion and emphasized that standing is secure when a plaintiff asserts a direct injury caused by the challenged conduct and remediable by the relief demanded, and that collateral matters should not be smuggled into the analysis, while noting that the Court's reference to "taxpayer standing" may call for a later reckoning (Young, J., concurring, PDF pp. 1-2). ## Disposition The court of appeals' judgment is reversed in part as to the taxpayers and affirmed as to LCISD, and the case is remanded to the court of appeals to decide the remaining jurisdictional challenges in the first instance (Opinion, PDF pp. 2, 15-16). ## Vote Breakdown Justice Huddle delivered the opinion of the Court (Opinion, PDF p. 1). Justice Young filed a concurring opinion, joined by Justices Devine, Sullivan, and Hawkins (Opinion, PDF p. 1). --- Source: The SCOTX Report, https://scotxreport.com/cases/24-0782. AI-generated summary of the Court's opinion, orders and the parties' briefs, with pin cites to the page of each document; verify against the Court's own documents at search.txcourts.gov.