DALLAS — Three Dallas residents have sued the City of Dallas, accusing it of breaking a Texas law by failing to remove dozens of city ordinances that overstep state law. However, officials in Ferris and other cities across the state believe the law does more harm than good for local governments.
Ferris City Manager Brooks Williams says his city’s population has tripled over the last six years, and that growth is taken into consideration when new ordinances are drafted.
“We really try to look at is the ordinance that we’re going to put in place in the best interest of our citizens, and what’s the impact to them,” he said.
However, he and other city officials in Texas believe state lawmakers didn’t consider the best interests of all cities when it passed House Bill 2127, which is also called the “Death Star” law, in 2023. It aims to keep cities from enacting ordinances that overstep state laws.
“It is overzealous. It really is too far-reaching at this point. I think it was a response to a limited number of cities that the Legislature felt like had gone too far out on a limb,” Williams said.
He added that about “90% of the cities in the state of Texas have a population under 50,000 people, and so when you make laws that are designed to limit the authority of these large metropolitan cities, but it impacts everybody across the board, that is probably not their intent, but it is certainly what is happening. For the state, you don’t want the federal government limiting you. Don’t limit us.”
Three Dallas residents who see things differently filed a lawsuit on Oct. 29, 2025, alleging Dallas has not repealed 83 ordinances that violate the law.
“A group of homeowners in Dallas said, ‘Hey, our taxes are going to pay for enforcement of all those ordinances that cost money and is burdening us as taxpayers,’” said their attorney Nathan Seltzer with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The City of Dallas declined to comment due to pending litigation. This new lawsuit comes months after an appeals court judge overturned a decision declaring the “Death Star” law unconstitutional. Houston, San Antonio and El Paso had attempted to block the law, arguing it would keep cities from passing ordinances on issues like public health emergencies, noise regulations and even water breaks.
“It sets a broader message out that what’s going to happen is that the state is going to be the determinant in what is good for all,” Williams said, emphasizing that different cities have different needs.
Seltzer says the law addresses overlap and red tape.
“We’re just saying that the places where Dallas has already identified that its ordinances overlap with state law, the state already regulates these activities, that Dallas doesn’t need to regulate them also,” he said.
Williams said it will take more test cases, like the lawsuit filed in Dallas, in order for cities to fully see the impact of the law. In the meantime, he says Ferris will follow the law.
“Our responsibility as a city is to begin to pressure our legislators and work with them, so that they understand what it is we’re doing at a local level,” Williams said.