City loses appeal on term limits lawsuit ruling

A state appeals court on Thursday rejected the city's procedural challenge to a lawsuit that could force Houston's mayor and city council members to revert to three two-year terms, from the two four-year terms voters approved in November 2015.

The Texas First Court of Appeals ruling did not address the merits of the underlying case, which centers on whether the city's ballot language was misleading.

Rather, the court's decision marks an incremental step in what is likely to be a lengthy appeals process that plaintiffs hope could trigger municipal elections as early as this fall.

Austin election lawyer Buck Wood, however, said he considers November mayoral and city council elections improbable, given the speed with which courts typically move.

Plaintiffs' attorney Andy Taylor welcomed Thursday's ruling and criticized the city for challenging the trial court's jurisdiction over the case, calling the move "frivolous and arrogant."

"The city should apologize to the voters for trying to avoid a trial on whether their chosen ballot language was deceptive," he said.

The appellate court's ruling affirms state District Judge Randy Clapp's decision last year to reject Houston's procedural challenge, which sought to get the case thrown out.

Clapp was not considering the substance of the case at the time, though he tipped his hand by calling the city's ballot language "inartful" but not "invalid."

Mayoral spokeswoman Janice Evans said Thursday the city attorney's office is considering whether to appeal the procedural decision to the state Supreme Court.

If the trial court's 2016 procedural decision holds, the case likely would return to Clapp for a hearing on the substance of whether Houston's term limits ballot language obscured the nature of the vote by asking whether voters wanted to "limit the length for all terms."

The city welcomed the case's probable return to trial court.

"The court clarified important jurisdictional and procedural issues in this case," Evans said in an email. "If not appealed, plaintiffs will now have to prove their case before the Honorable Randy Clapp."

Taylor, too, said he looks forward to a trial on the merits, adding that he hopes to resolve the appellate battle before the city's August deadline to call a November municipal election.

"If we're unable to obtain a final ruling by the August deadline, our backup plan is to ask the court to schedule a municipal election as soon as possible following the November election, but certainly well ahead of the November 2019 election cycle," Taylor said.

Wood, who is not involved in he case, challenged the notion that the court would call for mayoral and city council elections as part of the remedy in this case, even if it were to find the ballot language misleading.

Instead, Wood said, the court likely would require the city to call a new term limits referendum.

"The issue of whether or not there's going to be a city council election is a separate issue altogether," Wood said. "(The plaintiffs) would have to file a separate lawsuit."