Dallas City Hall Reporter
Dallas City Council member Carolyn King Arnold plans to file for reelection despite voters in November approving new term limit rules that disqualify her from being put on the ballot.
Arnold told The Dallas Morning News she believes the effects of the city charter amendment shouldn’t be retroactive.
The South Oak Cliff council representative has served four full two-year terms since 2015, but because they weren’t consecutive, she was eligible to run for one more two-year term as of October. Then, 69% of voters approved Proposition E, which bans single district council members who’ve served four two-year terms from being a future candidate for any seat on the council except mayor.
The previous charter rules reset the total term count after a term-limited or ousted mayor or city council member allowed one election cycle to pass before running again.
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“I am going to file on behalf of the democratic principles of representation of the people who sent me here,” Arnold said. “And then we’ll just let the process work itself out.”
She said she planned to file before the Feb. 14 deadline. As of Tuesday afternoon, only Dallas Independent School District Board Trustee Maxie Johnson had qualified for the District 4 City Council election ballot, though others have started fundraising and are considering joining the fray.
Johnson lost to Arnold in a 2021 runoff election.
There is no ambiguity in the rules, according to Dallas City Secretary Bilierae Johnson. The new charter amendment means Arnold joins council members Tennell Atkins and Omar Narvaez as term-limited and ineligible to seek re-election. Atkins and Narvaez would have been term-limited regardless of Proposition E’s result in the recent election.
“Prop E impacts past, current and future City Council members,” the city secretary said.
Arnold was first elected to a two-year term in 2015 and lost her seat two years later when voters selected Dwaine Caraway. Arnold was appointed back to the City Council by voters in 2018 to serve the remainder of then-mayor pro tem Caraway’s term after he pleaded guilty to federal public corruption charges, resigned and was later sentenced to prison.
She won reelection in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
Arnold is the chair of the council’s workforce, education and equity committee and is a former council mayor pro tem and deputy mayor pro tem.
Arnold said she didn’t know she would be impacted by the passage of Proposition E until after the Nov. 5 election.
“It’s like Marvin Gaye said, ‘I heard it through the grapevine,’” the council member said. Arnold said she feels prompted to file again after being contacted by residents who also weren’t aware she wouldn’t be able to be elected as their district representative.
“This is not a self-serving venture,” she said. “This is about the people and their belief in this city’s governance and that the charter that I was elected under in 2019 afforded me an opportunity to be eligible to ask the people for permission to represent them for four, two-year terms.”
Election Day is May 3. All 14 City Council seats will be up for grabs and four seats are set to be open. Along with Arnold, Atkins and Narvaez being deemed term-limited, council member Jaynie Schultz won’t seek reelection for a third term. The last day to register to vote is April 3 and early voting runs from April 22 through April 29.
Everton covers Dallas city government. He joined The Dallas Morning News in November 2020 after previously working for The Oregonian and The Associated Press in Hartford, Conn.
