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Relating to certain procedures associated with voter approval of municipal annexation.
No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
Under current law, residents of a city's extraterritorial jurisdiction who reside in counties with less than 500,000 people cannot vote on whether they agree to be annexed by a city unless they petition the county commissioners court with 10 percent of the county's registered voters to call for an election. SB 746 would lower the petition threshold from 10 percent to seven percent of registered voters, and require cities to wait at least five years before attempting to annex the same area that residents of these counties previously rejected at the ballot box.
Texas Action supports SB 746 because it promotes limited government, property rights, and individual liberty. This bill would help to strengthen the rights of property owners in smaller, more rural areas from being forcibly annexed. It would also strengthen limited government principles by prohibiting a municipality from adopting another resolution to annex any part of an area where voters expressly rejected that annexation for five years, rather than merely one year.