On August 14, 2025 the Austin City Council adopted a tax rate 5 cents above the voter-approval rate, which under Tax Code § 26.07(b) requires voter approval, and ordered a November 4, 2025 election on Proposition Q, whose ballot language describes the purpose as funding or expanding programs on housing affordability and homelessness, parks and recreation, public health and public safety and financial stability and providing "for other general fund maintenance and operation expenditures included in the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget." Jeffery Bowen hand-delivered a demand on August 13 that the language be amended to comply with Dacus v. Parker and to form the basis of an enforceable contract with the voters, and the Council declined.¹

Bowen filed an emergency petition in the Third Court of Appeals on August 17, 2025, and that court denied it on August 29 before he could reply. He filed an emergency original petition in the Court on September 1, citing ballot-printing deadlines of September 10 to 18, the City responded September 5, and on September 12, 2025 the Court denied the petition.¹

Original emergency petition for writ of mandamus after the court of appeals denied relief; denied September 12, 2025 (Docket).

Whether the City Council's ballot language misleads voters about the purpose and function of the tax increase, failing the Dacus v. Parker standard and the basis for an enforceable contract with the voters.¹

Bowen (Relator): the purpose description is indefinite and includes advocacy phrasing, sets no boundaries on spending the increase and lets the Council reallocate it to programs voters never approved.

City of Austin (Respondent): the enumerated purposes are sufficiently definite and certain that voters will not be misled, and the contract-with-the-voters doctrine does not impose commercial-contract requirements beyond those for a ballot proposition under Dacus.¹

Not applicable⁠—the petition was denied.

None noted

Reasoning

The statement said the relator's argument that the ballot language falls below minimum standards is close, since the lengthy purpose list ends in a catchall for general fund expenses and a big increase compounds in later years, but the City appears to have allocated a meaningful portion to the listed programs and telling voters the increase will fund the 2025-2026 budget is not technically wrong. Given the high burden for mandamus, the denial is no precedent and no endorsement of the language, the Court may later need to set minimum standards, and the Legislature has recently codified ballot-language requirements in S.B. 506 and remains free to impose more.¹

Disposition

Petition for writ of mandamus denied (Docket).

Vote Breakdown

Justice Young issued a statement respecting the denial.²