Exposing Overreach: Tarrant County

June 4, 2020

Shelby Sterling, J.D.

Shelby is a born-and-raised Texan from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She attended the University of Oklahoma where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Letters: Constitutional Emphasis, which is a combination study of philosophy, history, and literature on the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Fathers.

After graduation, Shelby followed her passion for law and returned to Texas to pursue her J.D. at Texas A&M University School of Law in Fort Worth.

Disaster declarations do not grant local elected officials authoritarian power to trample on Texans’ constitutional rights and God-given liberties.

Key points:

Chapter 418 of the Texas Government Code grants state and local authorities temporary emergency powers to protect public health and safety.
In some cases, these emergency powers have given rise to government overreach, as was evidenced with Tarrant County’s executive order allowing it to seize private property.
Eminent domain authorizes governmental entities to take private property through due process and requisite compensation.

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Shelby Sterling, J.D.

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