Texas can enforce a 2023 law requiring cities and counties to repeal potentially thousands of local ordinances that the state doesn’t expressly allow, a state appeals court ruled Friday.
Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso improperly made the state a defendant, even though only a private citizen can take civil action to enforce the law, the Court of Appeals, Third District said.
“No amount of repleading will show that the State of Texas is a proper defendant,” Justice Maggie Ellis wrote in the unanimous opinion.
Alleged injuries the cities cite in trying to establish standing “lack sufficient concreteness and particularization,” Ellis wrote. The decision overturns a trial court order and dismisses the case.
Texas Republicans prioritized the legislation to crack down on a patchwork of local ordinances in primarily left-leaning cities that business leaders say cause confusion and are difficult to regulate. Construction workers for instance might be entitled to rest breaks in one city but not the next.
The law, coined the “Death Star,” amends eight state regulatory codes, including labor, to block any local ordinance the state doesn’t expressly allow.
During oral arguments in April, Rance Craft of the attorney general’s office said the state doesn’t enforce the law and therefore shouldn’t have been sued.
Chief Justice Darlene Byrne appeared to disagree, asking “is the state delegating the ability to enforce to every Tom, Dick, and Harry?”
But Byrne joined Ellis and Justice Chari Kelly in ruling for the state.
The case is Texas v. Houston, Tex. App., 3d Dist., No. 03-23-00531-cv, 7/18/25.
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