Fourth Court of Appeals Grants Mayor Luis E. Sifuentes’ Writ of Mandamus to Run for Mayor in May 1 City Election
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2021
Texas Fourth Court of Appeals Chief Justice Rebeca C. Martinez issued a Memorandum Opinion of the three Justices panel, which included Justices Beth Watkins and Liza A. Rodriguez, on Friday, February 19, 2021, conditionally granting Eagle Pass Mayor Luis E. Sifuentes’ Application for a Writ of Mandamus to run as a candidate for Mayor in the City Officers Election scheduled on Saturday, May 1, 2021 after being disqualified by City Secretary Imelda B. Rodriguez based on a City Charter provision that provides “no person shall be elected for more than two (2) consecutive four year terms.”
Sifuentes was originally elected in 2013 as a City Council member Place 4 for a four-year term. In 2017, Sifuentes was re-elected to a second four-year term as City Council Place 4. In 2019, Eagle Pass Mayor Ramsey English Cantu resigned in order to run for State Representative, District 74. Sifuentes resigned his City Council Place 4 seat to run for the unexpired mayoral term, and was elected in February 1, 2020 for an unexpired term of fifteen months.
Mayor Sifuentes registered as a candidate for Mayor in the May 1, 2021 City Officers Election on January 13, but City Secretary Rodriguez issued an Administrative Declaration of Ineligibility against Sifuentes on January 15, 2021, disqualifying him as a candidate for Mayor in the May 1 City Election. Sifuentes retained legal counsel and challenged City Secretary Rodriguez’s interpretation of the term limit provision before the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio, Texas.
Mayor Sifuentes argued “that if he were re-elected as Mayor in May 2021, he will not have been elected for more than two (2) consecutive four-year terms.” The City of Eagle Pass argued that Sifuentes’s construction is unreasonable because ‘terms’ clearly and ambiguously refers to any four-year term, either as a council member or mayor. The Fourth Court of Appeals found that “when considering the plain language of the term-limits provision and the City’s charter as a whole, we cannot say Sifuentes’s construction is objectively unreasonable.”
The Fourth Court of Appeals found that “unlike the language found in other charters’ term-limit provisions, the plain language of the term-limits provision in the City’s charter does not clarify whether a candidate is prohibited from seeking consecutive election to a four-year term as either a council member or mayor.” The Court of Appeals also found that “the language of the charter did not appear to preclude Sifuentes from running for mayor for an unexpired term following his election to a second four-year term as council member. Nor does it unambiguously prohibit his election to a four-year term as Mayor not immediately following his re-election to a four-year term as a council member.”
The Court of Appeals added that “It is undisputed that in Sifuentes’s most recent election (the special election for mayor), he was elected to serve as the Mayor for an unexpired term of fifteen months, which is less than four years. Consequently, Sifuentes seeks for the first time to file for election to a four-year term as Mayor in May 2021, a distinct and separate seat from council member on the City Council.”
The Court of Appeals held that “we therefore hold the term-limits provision is susceptible to varied interpretations, including Sifuentes’s construction, under which he is eligible to file for election to a four-year term as the City’s mayor.”
The Court of Appeals concluded that “we must strictly construe the term-limits provision in the City’s charter against ineligibility, even if the City Secretary’s construction is also—or even more—reasonable. Because we cannot say Sifuentes’s construction is objectively unreasonable, we conclude the Election Code legally obligates the City Secretary to accept Sifuentes’s application for a place on the ballot for the City’s mayoral race in the May 2021 municipal elections. We therefore conditionally grant Sifuentes’s petition for writ of mandamus.”
The result of the Fourth Court of Appeals decision is that Mayor Sifuentes will be a candidate on the May 1 City Election ballot.
Mayor Sifuentes was represented by J.D. Pauerstein of the law firm of Rosenthal, Pauerstein, Sandoloski, Agather LLP of San Antonio, Texas while the City of Eagle Pass was represented by Langley and Banack of San Antonio, Texas.
