Dallas could be one step closer to making legalized gambling and ranked choice voting top priorities in the upcoming Texas Legislature session. Elected officials voted to keep both items on the legislative agenda during a Monday committee meeting — now they’ll have to pass a vote by the full council.
District 1 Council Member Chad West has been vocal about his support for finding ways to grow the city’s tax base – that includes moving to make sure the city gets revenue from potential gambling operations.
“I feel like this is a foregone conclusion at some point in the future…if we don’t prepare for it in Dallas, we have cities like Arlington and Irving that will happily take the mantel and allow for it in their cities,” West said during Monday’s Government Performance and Financial Management committee meeting.
West told the committee he believes the state will legalize casino gambling, sports betting and card rooms — and that’s why the city needs to be prepared when it happens.
“For me, we should get ahead of it and not sit back and wait and let our sister cities jump out in front of it,” West said. “I think one way to get ahead of it is for us to be down [in Austin] showing our support for legalization, regulation and taxes.”
Council Member Cara Mendelsohn, who represents District 12, said she agreed that the city should be preparing for the future — but she didn’t agree with everything West said.
“I totally disagree about the card rooms and don’t think that should be included in this item,” Mendelsohn said. “Overall, I don’t know that preparing needs to be part of a legislative agenda, especially when you’ve already had…the [Lieutenant Governor of Texas] say ‘this isn’t going to happen’.”
Mendelsohn said she wanted the city to be thoughtful about how it crafts its response to legalized gambling and likened the legislative agenda item to “literally showing all [the city’s] cards.”
Last year the city council approved more funds pay for legal fees fighting a battle over poker rooms.
The case involved a dispute over the city’s Building Official revoking certificates of occupancy from two poker houses. But the city’s board of adjustments overturned the revoked permits which led the building official to file a lawsuit against the board.
West, along with District 6 Council Member Omar Narvaez, were vocal at the time about what the claimed was a waste of taxpayer money.
“I am begrudgingly supporting granting more attorney’s fees for this ridiculous ordinance that we have supported as a council,” West said at the time. “Where does it end? When do we stop paying for this litigation?”
At the meeting, District 9 Paula Blackmon said its necessary for the city to start looking at new revenue sources — especially with mounting financial pressures.
“Other cities in this region will take it, if we don’t and we have a big bill coming up and this is a way to do it,” Blackmon said. “I’m going to support it because I do think its time to actually start being for something, instead of against something, in this city.”
The priority was approved in a four to one vote.
Rank choice voting — or what some call “instant run-off” elections — also gained traction during Monday’s meeting. That legislative priority was also submitted by West.
“This is not something that the council supported adding to the charter, but there were a lot of colleagues that did speak up and say they would be in support of advocating for it at the legislature,” West said during the meeting.
The style of election means voters essentially list out their candidates in order of preference rather than returning to the polls for a run-off election.
But its also gained a lot of controversy. Many Republican-led state legislatures across the country have already banned ranked choice voting, including five in the last few months, according to reporting by NPR.
David De la Fuente represented District 1 on the city’s Charter Review Commission and advocated for ranked choice voting.
“Runoffs are extremely burdensome on our even most hardcore voters,” De la Fuente said during a commission meeting earlier this year. “And this is exacerbated even more in the southern sector [of Dallas].”
The discussion during Monday’s committee meeting was short — only Mendelsohn spoke out in opposition to the agenda item. It passed by a three to two vote.
Now the legislative priorities will have to survive another round of discussion — and a vote — by the full Dallas city council.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you.
