AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the city of Austin over the city’s budgetary allocation to support out-of-state abortion services, Paxton’s office announced in a Friday release.
Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said earlier this month the city of Austin was moving forward with the Reproductive Health Grant, a $400,000 allocation included in the city’s fiscal year 2024-25 budget to support Austinites seeking abortion care outside of Texas. Those dollars are available to cover expenses such as travel, lodging, childcare stipends and food.
In Paxton’s lawsuit, the attorney general said his office is seeking a temporary restraining order to put a pause on the use of the funding while the litigation proceeds forward. The suit also requested the court provide temporary and permanent injunctions mandating Austin cannot spend taxpayer money on “logistical support” for abortion care.
“No city in Texas has the authority to spend taxpayer money in this manner. In this case, the City of Austin is illegally seeking to use public funding to support travel expenses for out-of-state abortions,” Paxton said in the release. “The Texas Constitution prohibits governmental entities from doing so.”
Paxton isn’t the first to sue the city over this issue. In late August, former Austin City Council Member Don Zimmerman filed a lawsuit against the city over the same funding, arguing it was against state law for the city to spend taxpayer dollars on “abortion-assistance activities,” even if the funds are being used outside the state where abortion services are legal.
In a social media post Friday, Fuentes criticized Paxton for “suppressing communities for promoting healthcare.”
“Reproductive care is essential healthcare, and these actions only further undermine local efforts to uphold bodily freedom,” Fuentes wrote. “It’s disappointing, but not surprising.”
KXAN also reached out to the city of Austin for a statement regarding this latest filing. We’ll update this story once we’ve received a response.