McAllen charter amended nearly three months after voter mandate

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McALLEN — Nearly three months after voters here delivered a mandate calling for the McAllen City Charter to be amended, officials here have at last ratified the two charter changes.

By a unanimous vote, and with nearly no discussion, the McAllen City Commission voted Monday to pass a so-called “minute order” that updates the charter to include new ordinances capping campaign contributions and empowering residents with “direct democracy powers.”

McAllen voters approved the two measures, dubbed the McAllen Anti-Corruption Act and the McAllen Direct Democracy Act, at the Nov. 5, 2024 General Election by 56.33% and 66.92%, respectively.

But after canvassing the election results during a commission meeting in mid-November — essentially confirming the Hidalgo County Elections Department’s ballot counts — city leaders subsequently thrice held off on enacting the charter changes.

Pending legal questions were holding the commission up from ratifying the two charter amendments, McAllen City Manager Isaac “Ike” Tawil told city leaders.

It was a concern he continued to echo during Monday’s meeting, but added that the amendments could still be put into effect.

“In working with legal, we do believe that there are issues with the language of the charter amendment as was presented by the applicant for that,” Tawil said.

“Nevertheless, the ministerial act of approving the minute order will not affect the city’s ability to challenge that language in the future, should we need. And so, at this point … we believe that you can move forward with that action,” he said.

With that, McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos called for a motion just as, simultaneously, multiple city commissioners spoke to do just that.

The vote passed unanimously.

The “applicant” Tawil referred to was Ground Game Texas, an Austin-based progressive political advocacy nonprofit that has launched signature-gathering petitions in cities across Texas.

Many of the group’s petitions involve spurring municipalities to decriminalize low-level offenses related to marijuana, decriminalize abortion, and even push for climate change policies.

In 2022, the group began focusing their initiatives here in the Rio Grande Valley, culminating in two successful efforts to raise the minimum wage of city employees in Alton and Edinburg to $15 per hour.

Then, last February, Ground Game turned its sights on McAllen, the largest city in Hidalgo County, and the only city in the county that didn’t already grant its residents the right to petition for ordinances to be passed or nullified.

Nor did the McAllen City Charter empower residents to petition for the recall of an elected official.

Those three issues — what Ground Game refers to as “direct democracy powers” — became one of two primary focuses in the nonprofit’s signature gathering efforts.

And those three issues ultimately went before voters as “Proposition B.”

But lumping the three issues together is what could potentially cause legal snags, Tawil said previously.

Under state law, a charter amendment proposition must present voters with only one issue at a time.

“An amendment may not contain more than one subject,” the statute reads, in part.

Thus far, no one has challenged the amendment. Nor has the city formally done so itself.

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