When news broke on Monday that Corpus Christi, Texas, was in danger of running out of water as early as next year, Gov. Greg Abbott a day later threatened to “take over” the municipality. But outside of placing the blame for the water crisis on city officials, what would Abbott’s proposed state takeover of a city actually entail?
The gulfside city in southern Texas is weathering a 5-year drought. Despite the state aid and more earmarked from the city, a report from a former water district manager described the city’s soon-to-be depleted reservoirs as a “controlled depression” that would see mass unemployment and an “industrial total shutdown,” according to Inside Climate News.
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Abbott said the state gave Corpus Christi officials $750 million to address the water crisis, and they squandered it. He told the Houston Chronicle at an event on Tuesday that his office “can only give them a little time more before the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage that city and run that city,” to ensure Corpus residents didn’t lose water.
Can he do that? Plainly put, yes. Cities aren’t given any sovereign powers under the Constitution. The abilities they do have, from incorporation to taxing to employing police, are all passed down from their respective states.
“As sovereign, the state has the right to step in temporarily or for longer periods, if a compelling interest requires the same,” said Ron Sandack, attorney at Gaido and Fintzen.
Sandack was the mayor of Downers Grove in suburban Chicago and an Illinois lawmaker who had pushed to allow financially downtrodden cities like Harvey, another Chicago suburb, to declare bankruptcy.
States, including Texas, most typically intervene in that manner when cities are in deep financial trouble. If it can, the municipality will file Chapter 9 bankruptcy and restructure debt. Detroit, for instance, filed in 2013 and came out of its financial receivership in December 2014.
A quick history lesson
The precedent of state supremacy over local mayors dates back to the 1868 Iowa Supreme Court ruling commonly referred to as the Dillon Rule. The ruling said that any local law or ordinance has to be done so under the umbrella of the state’s legislative blessing. That ruling was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1907.
The other side of the Dillon Rule coin is home rule, which gives cities certain powers so long as they don’t clash with state law. States enact laws dictating what cities can enjoy home rule status. Abbott has toyed with the idea of stripping home rule status from cities in Texas before. In 2023, he signed legislation that limited cities’ home rule capacity. An appellate court upheld the law in 2025.
According to the Thurgood Marshall Institute, state takeovers of municipalities became more common in the 1970s when conservative state officials saw city leaders allying with federal civil rights supporters to grow Black political power.
Sandack didn’t know the intricacies of Texas’ statute that Abbott would invoke, but told SAN that it appeared as though the governor was of the mind that the state could settle the issue more efficiently.
“This situation has some kinship with a receivership scenario,” he said. “In such an instance, it is contemplated that the state’s actions are not permanent and that some type of turnover back to the locality would occur.”
Abbot didn’t get into what type of takeover he was threatening Corpus Christi with.
