How the Texas Death Star Bill Preempts Local Ordinances

The Texas Death Star bill, formally House Bill 2127 or the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, is a 2023 state law that blocks cities and counties from enforcing local ordinances in nine broad areas already covered by state code. It took effect September 1, 2023, immediately voided several high-profile local rules including construction water-break requirements and paid sick leave mandates, and remains fully enforceable after the Third Court of Appeals reversed a lower-court ruling against it in July 2025.

Where the Nickname Comes From

Critics named it the “Death Star” bill because of the scale of what it eliminates in a single stroke. Most preemption laws override local authority on one topic, such as firearms or plastic bags. HB 2127 operates across nine entire legal codes at once, an approach opponents have described as “super preemption.”

The legislature’s stated purpose was to end the patchwork of city-by-city regulations and restore the state as the exclusive regulator of commerce in Texas.¹ Supporters said conflicting local rules burdened employers operating across jurisdictions. Opponents said the law strips cities of authority to address problems the legislature has never acted on, leaving gaps rather than uniform standards.

The Nine Codes the Law Preempts

HB 2127 inserts preemption language into nine Texas codes. Each new provision says cities and counties cannot adopt or enforce local rules regulating conduct in a “field of regulation” already covered by that code, unless another state statute specifically authorizes local action. Any local ordinance that crosses the line is void.¹ The nine codes are:

Labor Code (wages, scheduling, benefits, workplace conditions)
Business & Commerce Code (trade practices, consumer protection, commercial transactions)
Finance Code (lending, banking, financial services)
Insurance Code (insurance requirements and regulation)
Agriculture Code (farming, ranching, food production)
Natural Resources Code (environmental management, water, land resources)
Occupations Code (professional licensing and trade regulation)
Property Code (landlord-tenant, evictions, real property)
Local Government Code (municipal regulation of animal-related businesses)

The mechanism is called field preemption. If a topic falls within one of these codes, cities cannot regulate it at all — not more strictly, not more loosely — unless a specific state statute expressly authorizes local action. The bar catches existing ordinances as well as future ones, so rules passed years or decades before 2023 can be invalidated.

Two codes carry language worth flagging. The Property Code provision expressly reaches local rules that regulate evictions or restrict delivery of a notice to vacate or the filing of a suit for possession. The Local Government Code provision is narrower than the others: it protects federally or state-licensed animal businesses, including breeders and pet sellers, from municipal restrictions.¹

Local Ordinances the Law Wiped Out

The immediate casualties were worker and tenant protections that several Texas cities had built up over the previous decade. The law’s full reach is still being worked out, but the following categories were clearly affected from day one.

Construction Water Breaks

Austin required 10-minute rest breaks every four hours for construction workers starting in 2010, and Dallas adopted a similar rule in 2015. Both ordinances were nullified as workplace-conditions rules under the Labor Code. No state mandate replaced them. Federal law still requires employers to keep workplaces free of recognized hazards, and courts have applied that duty to heat exposure, but OSHA has not finalized a heat-specific standard.²³ Texas construction workers have no mandatory rest-break requirement specific to heat at either the state or federal level.

Paid Sick Leave

Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio had each adopted ordinances requiring employers to provide earned sick time. All three were effectively nullified under the Labor Code preemption. Texas has no statewide paid sick leave law, so the result is a gap, not a state-level replacement.

Ban-the-Box Hiring Rules

Austin’s 2016 ordinance barring employers from asking about criminal history on initial job applications was preempted as a hiring-practice regulation under the Labor Code.

Eviction Protections

The Property Code preemption expressly reaches local rules that delay eviction procedures, extend notice-to-vacate timelines, or impose waiting periods before filing suit.¹ Cities that had layered additional tenant protections onto the state eviction process lost the ability to enforce them. State Property Code timelines now apply without local modification.

Local Nondiscrimination Ordinances

The law’s effect on local nondiscrimination protections is unsettled. Several Texas cities prohibit discrimination in housing and employment based on characteristics not covered by state law, including sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill’s author said during the legislative process that HB 2127 would not affect those ordinances, but the enacted text contains no express carve-out. Because the preemption language is broad enough to arguably reach these rules through the Property Code and Occupations Code, their status is an open question that no court has resolved.

How the Law Gets Enforced

HB 2127 does not rely on state agencies to police cities. It creates a private cause of action: anyone with an “injury in fact, actual or threatened” from a preempted local rule can sue the city or county directly. Standing runs broadly: individuals, corporations, LLCs, partnerships, trusts, and trade associations acting on behalf of members all qualify. A successful challenger can obtain a declaratory judgment voiding the ordinance, an injunction stopping enforcement, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees.¹

The attorney-fee provision is what gives the statute its bite. A losing city pays the challenger’s legal bills, which pressures local governments to repeal potentially preempted ordinances rather than defend them, and lowers the barrier for challengers to file. In practice, the threat of litigation alone can move cities to stop enforcing rules that have never been ruled on.

Federal Protections HB 2127 Cannot Touch

The law only preempts local regulation. It cannot override federal law, and that distinction matters most in the areas where city rules were eliminated.

Federal workplace safety obligations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act still apply to Texas employers. The general duty clause requires employers to keep workplaces free of recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious harm, and heat-related hospitalizations and fatalities must be recorded and reported.² Enforcement runs through OSHA inspections and citations, not local ordinances, so HB 2127 does not affect it.

The federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act separately prevents state and local governments from mandating specific employer-sponsored benefit plans. Some local benefit mandates likely faced ERISA preemption problems before HB 2127 was ever passed; the state law simply added a second, clearer basis for striking them down.

Court Challenges and Where the Law Stands

Houston sued shortly after the bill was signed, and other Texas cities joined. In August 2023, a Travis County district judge ruled HB 2127 unconstitutional, finding the legislature had overstepped its authority over local governments. The ruling created short-lived uncertainty about whether cities were still bound by the preemption.

On July 18, 2025, the Third Court of Appeals reversed and dismissed the cities’ claims without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The appellate court held the cities had not established standing in the form they brought the case. Because the court never reached the underlying constitutional question, it did not rule that HB 2127 is constitutional; it ruled that these challengers did not have the right case to test it. The constitutional merits remain unresolved, and a future challenge by a plaintiff with a concrete injury from a specific preempted ordinance could potentially reopen them. None has succeeded so far.

During the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers considered Senate Bill 2858, which would have let the Texas Attorney General sue cities and counties directly under the preemption framework. It did not pass. No amendment or repeal of HB 2127 came out of the 89th Legislature, so the law operates today in the form it took in 2023.

1
Texas Legislature Online. Texas HB 2127 Enrolled Version – Bill Text
2
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Heat Exposure Standards
3
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings