by David Brown
Houston residents Phillip Bryant, an investor, and Eric Dick, a lawyer, are suing the city of Houston. They want the results of the November 3 vote to lengthen local term limits to be ruled invalid.
The suit contends that politicians misled voters with the wording of Proposition 2, which passed 65% to 35%. The ballot title seemed to say that if passed, the measure would trim maximum tenure of city officials instead of what it actually does: lengthen it from six years to eight years.
Eric Dick told the Houston Chronicle that “the language on the ballot is clearly tilted to benefit incumbents…. The more I start talking about this, a lot of people come out and say they were tricked.”
Proposition 2 asked whether Houston’s city charter “[shall] be amended to reduce the number of terms of elective offices to no more than two terms in the same office and limit the length for all terms of elective office to four years, beginning in January 2016; and provide for transition?”
Dick notes that the question conspicuously failed to state that, prior to passage, the length of an individual term had been two years. “Second is, it says it will limit the length for all terms of elected office to four years, suggesting that the maximum amount of time an individual can serve would be four years [rather than eight years].”
The measure allows some incumbents to serve longer than the six years to which they were limited before the measure passed.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Annise Parker, Janice Evans, asserts that voters must have “clearly understood” the measure since it passed with 65% of the vote, as if it’s impossible for politicians to mislead a lot of people all at once.
Perhaps Evans should talk to her boss. On November 4, Mayor Parker said: “There may have been some voters confusion out there. I don’t know that [voters] realized that they were giving council members more time in office.”