Court Opinion

ID: 9690542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 19:22:23.484658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:00.288494
License: Public Domain

Justice ENOCH,
concurring.
I join, in the Court’s opinion and in the judgment. I write separately only to mention one facet of this case that troubles me: *127by conferring on Austin the authority to control land use outside its boundaries, the Legislature has partially disenfranchised a class of citizens. This disenfranchisement is at its most obvious in this case, in which the citizens of one community by their vote have placed land use restrictions on citizens of neighboring communities who had no vote. It is also a disenfranchisement that may very well violate the “one man, one vote” principle inherent in the right to participate in the political process and guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Holt Civic Club v. City of Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60, 68, 99 S.Ct. 383, 58 L.Ed.2d 292 (1978).
In Holt, the United States Supreme Court decided that the City of Tuscaloosa’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, which extended police jurisdiction and sanitary regulations over several unincorporated areas, did not violate the voting rights of those areas’ residents. Id. at 70, 99 S.Ct. at 389-90. The Court declined to invalidate the extraterritorial jurisdiction because of “the extraordinarily wide latitude that States have in creating various types of political subdivisions and conferring authority upon them.” Id. at 71, 99 S.Ct. at 390. But however wide the states’ latitude is, it is not without boundaries, and two aspects of the Holt opinion indicate that this case might be distinguishable.
First, the jurisdictional extension in Holt provided substantial benefits to the residents in the form of municipal services such as police, fire, and health protection. See id. at 74, 99 S.Ct. at 392. Second, the Court stated that an extraterritorial-jurisdiction statute conferring broader powers than those at issue in Holt could run afoul of the “one man, one vote” principle. See id. at 72 n. 8, 99 S.Ct. at 391; id. at 79, 99 S.Ct. at 394-95 (Stevens, J., concurring) (noting the Court’s “limited” holding and stating that extraterritorial jurisdiction “might sometimes operate to deny the franchise to individuals who share the interests of their voting neighbors”).
In this case, by contrast, the Petitioners appear to bear most of the burdens and the City appears to enjoy most of the benefits. Perhaps the extraterritorial jurisdiction at issue here is onerous enough to violate the Petitioners’ constitutional rights. However, though they hint at it, the Petitioners do not brief this issue, and the Court properly omits considering it. See Tex. R. App. P. 38.1(h). On the other hand, I think that this is a serious question that should be kept in mind.