Lawsuit accuses Dallas of violating voter rights over dueling charter amendment proposals

A supporter of a trio of Dallas charter amendment proposals panned by city leaders filed a lawsuit to block a set of apparent counter propositions from being on the ballot.
Cathy Cortina Arvizu, who signed three petitions to get proposals pushed by nonprofit Dallas Hero onto the Nov. 5 ballot, is also suing 13 of the 15 members of the Dallas City Council in federal court. Arvizu argues they violated the Constitution by approving additional proposed charter changes that could override the Dallas Hero amendments if approved by voters.
“This grotesque action by the City Council was a desperate last-minute attempt to introduce separate ballot propositions designed and written to confuse, mislead and disenfranchise the city of Dallas voters,” Arvizu’s lawsuit says. It later argues that most of the voters who signed petitions to get the proposals on the ballot were women and people of color and their First Amendment rights are being deprived.
The federal lawsuit doesn’t name Mayor Eric Johnson and council member Cara Mendelsohn, who didn’t signal support for any of the counter-proposals. Those amendment ideas were each introduced and approved by the majority of the City Council on Aug. 14, the day the charter propositions were finalized. Similar complaints seeking judges’ orders to stop the city charter amendment ballots from printing as-is were filed against the city and all 15 council members in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Dallas and the Texas Supreme Court. Dallas Hero is listed as a co-plaintiff in those complaints.
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Arvizu declined to comment when reached by The Dallas Morning News by phone Thursday, saying she wanted to consult with her attorney before speaking about the lawsuit. City officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
“We’re not fooling around,” said Dallas Hero Executive Director Pete Marocco on Thursday afternoon. “We’re holding these people to account, and we’re coming after them hard.”
The Dallas Hero proposals call for the city to:
The proposals received the mandatory minimum of at least 20,000 voter signatures to qualify for the November election ballot.
Several City Council members and other officials, such as interim city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, have cautioned against the trio of proposals, saying every city department would likely see drastic cuts and lower police training standards to quickly accommodate that number of cops, pave the way for the city to be inundated with lawsuits that taxpayer money would be used to fight, and likely shrink the candidate pool for a new city manager. Several council members said they would personally vote down the Dallas Hero proposals and encourage others to do the same.
The City Council’s counter-proposals are to:
The federal lawsuit says attorneys representing the city and Dallas Hero negotiated the specific language of the charter amendment proposals and included emails detailing some of the exchange on the day the proposals were approved for the ballot.
“The City Council intended to mislead and cause confusion among voters, diminish the ability of voters to discern and distinguish the city’s propositions from other propositions on the ballot, and nullify the will of voters,” the lawsuit says.
The six propositions are among nearly two dozen proposals on the November ballot to update Dallas’ charter, which defines the powers, functions and structure of its municipal government.
Other propositions include raises for the Dallas City Council and banning police officers from arresting or citing people accused of carrying four ounces or less of marijuana.