Quorum rule may block property tax hike
A quirk in Texas law could allow the two Republicans on Harris County Commissioners Court, despite being in the minority, to prevent the three Democrats from enacting a proposed property tax increase.
Typically, three court members constitute a quorum, the minimum number needed to conduct business. The Texas Government Code, however, requires four members be present to vote on levying a tax.
That exception affords rare power to Republican commissioners Steve Radack and Jack Cagle, who have been steamrolled on 3-2 votes on enacting bail reform, appointing a judge and a resolution on gun violence.
The pair simply would need to skip a tax hike vote to prevent the three Democrats from passing it, First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard said. The trio on Sept. 10 proposed raising the overall property tax rate 2.26 cents per $100 of assessed value. The existing rate is 63 cents per $100 of assessed value.
“We don’t know how exactly it would play out,” Soard said. “But if there are not four members present, Commissioners Court can’t vote on a tax increase.”
A final vote is scheduled for Oct. 8, and the deadline to set the county tax rates is Oct. 11, leaving the Democrats with little margin for error. Commissioners Court has scheduled public hearings on the proposal on Sept. 20 and Sept. 24.
Radack pointed out that he has not missed a meeting in more than five years, and said Oct. 8’s session is marked on his calendar.
Cagle, through a spokesman, said he is mulling his options. Ca
gle proposed a compromise at the Sept. 11 meeting, only increasing the flood control district rate, but his motion was defeated on a party-line vote.
Harris County’s overall property tax rate consists of four separate tax rates, one each for the county, the Port of Houston, the flood control district and Harris Health System, the county’s safety net hospital system.
Two Lubbock County Republican commissioners delayed a tax rate vote on Sept. 9 by denying their colleagues a quorum, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported. Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish called the ploy an “unnecessary political stunt,” since the body does not plan to raise taxes.
Parrish told the Houston Chronicle the two commissioners, Jason Corley and Chad Seay, blindsided their colleagues when they failed to appear for the meeting.
“I wondered, are they stuck in an elevator? Was someone in a car wreck?” Parrish said. “We were trying to figure out why they weren’t at the dais.”
Corley and Seay instead released a pre-recorded video explaining their absence. The pair said they feared their colleagues would enact a tax increase, and denying a quorum was a necessary tactic.
“Taxes only go up when good conservatives do nothing,” Seay said in the clip.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said he would be deeply concerned for the county’s future if the court members were unable to secure more funds for health care, flood control and public safety.
“If that happens, those who don’t show up for the people of Harris County on this issue need to be prepared to live with the consequences,” Ellis said.
During his tenure in the state Legislature, Ellis was one of the Texas Eleven, a group of Democratic senators who fled to New Mexico for more 46 days in 2003 to deny the body a quorum. The group was unsuccessful in its attempt to prevent Republicans from re-drawing congressional district boundaries to favor their party.
Ellis said that quorum break differs significantly from the present Harris County situation because in 2003, he said Republicans abandoned longstanding rules of the Senate to launch an “unprecedented, middecade redistricting power grab after the courts had already drawn the lines.”
The proposed property tax increase, which would be the first increase since 1996, would collect more than $200 million in additional revenue over the current rate. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the measure is necessary to ensure the county can continue to pay for services, including billions in flood control projects, after the revenue cap passed by the Legislature takes effect next year.
That cap limits year-overyear growth of city and county revenue to 3.5 percent, down from a previous ceiling of 8 percent. Revenue increases above that threshold would need voter approval.
The county budget office estimates the average Harris County homeowner’s tax bill would increase by $38, based on a home valued around $230,000.
Republican State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, an architect of the Legislature’s property tax reform package, calculated a steeper cost. Bettencourt said analysts must factor in the increase in the average appraisal value of homes, which he put at 8 percent. He estimated the average homeowner will see a $131 property tax increase when rising appraisal values are considered.