Texas Attorney General Opinion: O-2529 Page: 2 of 3
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Honorable L. D. Hartwell, page 2
Article 2955, Revised Civil Statutes, reads in part as
follows:
"Every person subject to none of the fore-
going disqualifications * * * shall be deemed
a qualified elector * * * provided that any
voter who is subject to pay a poll tax under
the laws of this State or ordinances of any city
or town in this State, shall have paid said tax
before offering to vote in any election in this
State and holds a receipt showing that said poll
tax was paid before the first day of February
next preceding such election * * *"
Our Opinion No. 0-969, approved June 21, 1939, holds
that the two articles just quoted, when considered together,
disqualify all voters in all elections who fail to pay their
city poll taxes in the manner and within the time provided by
law. See Powell v. City of Baird, Civ. App., 127 S.W. (2d)
206; Ibid, Supreme Court, 128 S.W. (2d) 786.
From your letter, however, it appears the City Council
of Wolfe City has decreed (by ordinance, we presume) that only
male voters shall be required to present a city poll tax re-
ceipt in order to vote in the July primary, whereas female
voters may vote in such election without having paid such tax.
Prior to the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to
the Federal Constitution providing that "the right of citizens
of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or by any State on account of sex;"
Article 1030, R.C.S., supra, read as follows:
"The City Council shall have power to levy
and collect an annual poll tax, not to exceed one
dollar, of every male inhabitant of said city over
the age of twenty-one and under sixty years, etc."
(Emphasis ours)
The statute was amended by the Forty-second Legislature
(Acts 1931, 42nd Leg., p. 377, Ch. 223, 1), the words "of
every inhabitant of said city being substituted for "of every
male inhabitant of said city." The intent of the Legislature
is thus obvious, without resort to construction; any argument
or contention to the contrary being entirely dispelled by
reading the emergency clause of the amendatory Act: "The fact
that under the present law only male inhabitants of cities
are subject to poll tax creates an emergency, etc."
You are therefore advised that the City Council of0-2529
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: O-2529, text, 1940; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth259739/m1/2/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.