“The Death Star is now operational,” Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) wrote in a statement. was posted on X in July, shortly after a judge upheld the Texas Regulatory Consequence Act, Texas’ landmark preemption law commonly referred to as the “Death Star,” which Burroughs authored and passed in 2023. Although enacted more than two years ago, TRCA could not go into effect until this lawsuit was resolved last summer.
Now, just two months after the TRCA went into effect in Texas, the significance of its impact is becoming more apparent. Last week, on October 29, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), an Austin-based think tank, filed a lawsuit on behalf of three Dallas residents seeking to strike down 83 Dallas ordinances and regulations in violation of the TRCA.
Arguing that 83 local laws and regulations in Dallas are no longer permitted now that the Death Star law is in place, TPPF’s lawsuit against the city of Dallas cites the city’s own legal counsel. “During a House State Affairs Committee hearing on March 15, 2023, Laura Morrison, Assistant City Attorney, testified on behalf of the City of Dallas in opposition to HB 2127,” TPPF’s lawsuit notes. “During her testimony, Representative Rafael Anchía (D-Dallas) asked Ms. Morrison to provide him with a list of city ordinances that would be affected by the bill.” The TPPF lawsuit goes on to note that in April 2023, Dallas officials provided Rep. Anchía with a list of 133 city ordinances “that would be affected” by House Bill 2127, the Death Star legislation that would pass.
“Since TRCA’s only effect is to invalidate preempted laws, the only possible way HB 2127 could affect the 133 cited city laws is to preempt them, rendering them void and unenforceable,” the TPPF lawsuit explains. “That is, in trying to prevent HB 2127 from passing, the City of Dallas told Rep. Anchía that at least the 133 ordinances and regulations listed in his memo would be preempted by state law if HB 2127 were to pass.”
“HB 2127 has passed and is now the law of the state. Accordingly, the City of Dallas has admitted that the 133 city ordinances and regulations in its April 2023 memo are now preliminary in law, void and unenforceable,” the lawsuit continues. “More than two years later, after receiving notice from the plaintiffs, the City of Dallas has repealed a handful of the more than 100 ordinances listed in the April 2023 memo.”
“We commend Dallas for doing the right thing by repealing some of its unconstitutional ordinances,” he said Nathan Seltzer, TPPF attorney. “However, Dallas has kept the vast majority of these ordinances on the books, despite admitting they are preempted by the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act.”
In its lawsuit, TPPF seeks “a declaratory judgment that the Dallas ordinances and regulations referenced in the April 2023 memo to Rep. Anchía are preempted by the TRCA and are therefore void and unenforceable, injunctive relief barring any future enforcement of those ordinances and regulations.”
Dallas is the ninth most populous city in the US, making a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs significant in itself. But don’t expect such Death Star-related lawsuits to stop with Dallas.
“Cities don’t get to choose which state laws to follow,” said Matthew Chiarizio, an attorney for TPPF. “For too long, Dallas has heaped unnecessary and duplicative regulations on its citizens. The Legislature rightfully preempted those rules, and this lawsuit is about protecting Texans’ freedom to live and work without being suffocated by layers of unnecessary local regulation.”
