Initiative or Referendum is available for local issues to citizens in 263 Texas cities.

In Texas, any city with a population of 5,000 or more may decide to become a home-rule city by creating its own charter and submitting it to the voters for approval.  So far, 303 cities have elected to operate under their own home-rule charters.  These charters provide for citizens to initiate amendments to the charter via a process similar to the initiative.  And 263 of these cities have charter sections specifically providing for initiative and/or referendum for local issues.

In late 1999 and early 2000 an effort was made to gather charters from these cities for the purpose of compiling detail information on how the initiative or referendum process operated in each city where it was available.  While this study was never fully completed, the data that has been gathered was made possible by the cooperation of many city secretaries, the Texas Municipal League, and the Director of Statutory Documents Section of the Secretary of State.  Click here to view a spreadsheet summarizing this data.  This is a large file and may take a minute or two to download.  It is best viewed on a large monitor.

 The Texas cities that have posted their city charters on the world wide web may viewed here.

Initiative for Texas, Austin, TX 78741  **   (512) 447-2086  **   email: mikeford@quik.com

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