Last week, voters in the city of Dallas passed two groundbreaking ballot propositions: one that holds local government accountable for following the law, and a second that requires excess annual revenue be used to hire police officers.
Properly implemented, the propositions should become a blueprint for every city in the nation, particularly those run by Democrats.
Specifically, Proposition S stated, “Shall the Dallas City Charter be amended by adding a new chapter that grants standing to any resident of Dallas to bring a lawsuit against the city to require the city to comply with provisions of the city charter, city ordinances, and state law; entitles claimants to seek declaratory and injunctive relief against the city and recover costs and reasonable attorney’s fees; and waives the city’s governmental immunity from suit and liability in claims brought under this amendment?”
Should Dallas’ annual revenue exceed the previous year’s, Proposition U requires the city to spend no less than 50% of the excess to fund the Dallas Police and Fire Pension, increase the starting salary for police officers, and requires the city to do so until Dallas reaches 4,000 officers from the current 3,100.
The propositions, called the HERO Amendments, passed with heavy minority and Democrat support, despite overwhelming opposition by all 14 city council members, four former mayors as well as the current one, and other county officials.
Dallas HERO Executive Director Pete Marocco told The Dallas Express, “I am so grateful that the people made a choice to give power back to the people… that’s exactly what these propositions are…”
The crime rate in Dallas had become intolerable for citizens and businesses. According to Crimegrade.org, Downtown Dallas’ three zip codes house some of the worst crime statistics in the nation.
Zip code 75201 crime rate is in the 4th percentile, meaning that 96% of U.S. cities are safer.
The crime rate is 104.8 per 1,000 citizens.
Zip code 75202 is even worse, coming in at the 2nd percentile, meaning 98% of U.S. cities are safer, with a crime rate of 143.7 per 1,000 citizens. That translates to a 14.3% chance, or about 1 in 7, that someone in that zip code will be a crime victim.
The “safest” zip code is 75270, landing in 24th percentile, meaning 76% of cities are safer, with a crime rate of 45.7 per 1,000 citizens.
These crime rates are worse than Chicago’s.
Monty Bennett, a hotelier and publisher of the Dallas Express, supported the initiatives vocally and financially. He told WFAA-TV, “Women won’t walk Downtown during the day and men won’t walk there during the night.”
Businesses are leaving in droves. Bank of America, known for occupying the signature green LED-rimmed tower, moved employees to a new location 1/3 mile away to avoid downtown, and absorbed a 3x rent increase in the process.
Bennett also told WFAA that when the City Council campaigns for the next election, they will talk about what they did to allegedly reduce crime, but “when they actually have the opportunity to allocate resources to it, they don’t. People are sick of it. They’re sick of politicians saying one thing and doing another.”
The City Council, Bennett says, is more interested in using taxpayer money “for their pet projects,” one of which includes spending $6 million for a contractor to count trees.
Hence, the HERO Amendments.
Prop U is designed to force the city to use excess revenue to hire more police officers. Prop S allows citizens to sue the city and have the court require Dallas adhere to Prop U – and all other laws – and recover attorney’s fees in the process so that Dallas can’t wriggle out of the people’s call for action.
The city will almost certainly spend taxpayer money to challenge the propositions.
HERO supporters see the propositions as a national blueprint. GOP operative Aaron Harris, who uncovered voter fraud in Texas in 2016 and led the fight to pass an anti-ballot harvesting law, believes that “every major American city should pass similar laws via ballot proposition or by pressuring their elected officials. It’s time to take our cities back from the criminals, hire more police officers, and hold politicians to account by making them obey their own laws.”