Background
John Sellars filed an election contest alleging unlawful acts leading up to a November 4, 2025 special election on 15 proposed amendments to the Conroe City Charter. The trial court granted Mayor Duke Coon, in his official capacity, and the City of Conroe’s motion to strike Sellars’s first amended election contest in an order signed April 13, 2026.
Sellars filed his notice of appeal on July 10, 2026. The appellees moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that Texas Election Code section 231.009 made the case an accelerated appeal and that Sellars therefore missed the applicable deadline. Sellars maintained that the statute’s direction to dispose of election contests “as expeditiously as practicable” did not require acceleration.
The Court’s Holding
The court adopted the reasoning of Launius v. Flores and held that section 231.009 makes an appeal involving an election contest on a measure an appeal “required by statute to be accelerated or expedited” under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 28.1(a). The accelerated deadline in Rule 26.1(b) therefore governed the notice of appeal.
Because Sellars filed his notice outside the time allowed to perfect an accelerated appeal, the court granted the appellees’ motion and dismissed the appeal. Justice Wright dissented, reasoning that “as expeditiously as practicable” directs appellate courts to prioritize these cases but does not impose accelerated filing deadlines.
Key Takeaways
- An appeal from a Texas election contest concerning a ballot measure is accelerated under Election Code section 231.009 and Rule 28.1(a).
- A notice of appeal filed outside the accelerated timetable fails to invoke the appellate court’s jurisdiction.
- Statutes governing contests involving candidates for office did not control this dispute over city-charter measures.
Why It Matters
The decision makes the accelerated appellate timetable jurisdictionally critical for parties challenging elections on ballot measures in Texas’s Ninth Court of Appeals. Litigants cannot rely on the ordinary appeal schedule merely because section 231.009 does not expressly prescribe a filing deadline.
The dissent highlights an unresolved interpretive disagreement: whether a statutory command to proceed “as expeditiously as practicable” accelerates the litigant’s deadline to perfect an appeal or merely instructs the appellate court to give the case priority.