Texas attorney general's office challenges Harris County ad targeting
Office of the Texas Attorney GeneralState legal office filing a verified petition
The state says county officials have no authority to direct taxpayer-funded voter ads by race or ethnicity and seeks an injunction.
“Nothing in the Texas Constitution or the statutes of the State of Texas permit a subdivision of the State to direct targeted ads towards people on the basis of race or ethnicity.”
Original text
Where this statement fits
Texas AG's office sues Harris County clerk over Meta ad targeting; county officials defend the outreach
The Office of the Texas Attorney General sued Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth and communications director Irene Nunez over voter-information advertisements using Meta audience interests. The state alleges that the targeting favors selected racial and ethnic groups and violates the Texas Constitution. County officials defend the outreach as lawful and intended to provide election information to eligible voters. Late on October 29, the clerk's office said it deactivated the audience subsets to avoid distractions, while continuing to defend its actions.
Source and context
Original text
About this source
The state seeks to stop interest-based voter-ad targeting that it alleges discriminates by race and ethnicity.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The petition lists Meta interest categories used to target the county's voting ads, such as African culture and African dance, and says the targeting shows the county is trying to make it more likely that only certain racial and ethnic groups vote.
After the quotation
The petition then cites the Texas Constitution's Equal Rights Amendment and argues that spending taxpayer money on the targeted ads is beyond the county's legal authority.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Relative to the county's targeted outreach, the state expressly challenges its legality.
- Recorded on
- Published here
More from this case
Read the full caseHarris County clerk defends voter outreach and removes audience subsets
Harris County Clerk's Office
“We are confident that our voter outreach efforts are lawful.”Read statement
Harris County attorney defends the legality of voter outreach
Harris County Attorney's Office
“We believe the County's efforts to ensure all voters in our diverse county have access to voter-information are legal”Read statement
Menefee challenges the attack on Harris County's voter ads
“ads that do nothing more than tell neighbors when to vote and where to get information about voting.”Read statement
Share or embed this statement
The embed keeps its attribution link to The Dispute Index. Credit the image to The Dispute Index and link to the statement page.
Cite this record
- Publisher
- The Dispute Index
- Title
- Texas attorney general's office challenges Harris County ad targeting
- First published
- Last updated
- Permalink
- https://disputeindex.com/events/7271-the-state-says-county-officials-have-no-authority
Last updated marks the most recent saved version of this published statement.
The Dispute Index. "Texas attorney general's office challenges Harris County ad targeting". First published: 2026-10-30. Last updated: 2026-10-30. https://disputeindex.com/events/7271-the-state-says-county-officials-have-no-authority