In 1836, fifty-nine delegates met at Washington-on-the-Brazos while Santa Anna’s army marched east. The Alamo had just fallen. They had no time and no certainty they would survive the spring. They wrote a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution anyway, because they understood something we are forgetting: a free people write down what government is not allowed to do to them, before government gets the chance to do it.
The first line of the Declaration of Rights they attached to that Constitution reads:
“All men, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man or set of men are entitled to exclusive public privileges or emoluments from the community.”
The second line reads:
“All political power is inherent in the People, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and they have at all times an inalienable right to alter their government in such manner as they may think proper.”
They meant both sentences. They meant that no official, no board, no district, and no politician holds power of their own. Power is loaned to public servants by the people, for the people’s benefit, and the people can take it back.
They also wrote this, in Section Thirteen:
“No person’s particular services shall be demanded, nor property taken or applied to public use, unless by the consent of himself or his representative, without just compensation being made therefor.”
Property could not be taken. Not by a king, not by a governor, not by a committee. Not without consent. Not without just compensation.
That is the Republic the founders built. It is not the Republic we are living in.
Across Texas, homeowners are opening their Notice of Appraised Value in May and finding numbers they cannot afford. Not prices they agreed to. Not values a buyer has offered. Numbers assigned to their homes by appraisal district employees they did not elect, used to calculate taxes set by boards and districts most of them could not name.
In Denton County, a Dallas-based real estate company called Mockingbird Properties has spent years documenting what they describe as a pattern of fraudulent property valuations by the Denton Central Appraisal District — and has filed suit. They allege the 2021 tax roll was certified with falsified data, that USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice) has been systematically violated, and that the appraisal district has operated outside the law for years. Their evidence is public. Their lawsuit is public. Whether every allegation is ultimately proven in court or not, the fact that a multi-year, evidence-backed lawsuit of this magnitude has been necessary at all should alarm every Texan who owns property.
Because the pattern is not only in Denton.
Across the state:
This is what taxation without consent looks like in 2026. It doesn’t arrive in redcoats. It arrives in the mail.
Every election cycle, Texans are told to focus on Washington. Presidents, senators, federal judges. Meanwhile, the people deciding what your home is “worth” for tax purposes are appointed by boards you can’t name. The people levying school taxes against your property are elected in off-cycle races that almost nobody votes in. Your county commissioners, your county judge, your chief appraiser, your school board — these are the offices that set the tax on your home. These are the offices that put lien on your land. These are the offices most Texans cannot name, and the ones most likely to be filled by people who were never seriously challenged.
The founders’ warning in Section One — that no man or set of men is entitled to exclusive public privileges or emoluments — was a warning against exactly this. Against the slow capture of public offices by people who treat them as a career, a platform, or a profit center rather than a duty.
Property Taxes Texas exists for three reasons.
To help Texans understand the property tax system. What the Notice of Appraised Value actually is. What the 10% homestead cap actually protects. What the deadline to protest actually is. What the Texas Property Tax Code actually says. The system has been made confusing on purpose; this site tries to make it plain.
To help Texans protest and fight back, county by county. Each county page will tell you who your appraisal district is, when the deadlines fall, who your elected officials are, and what resources exist to challenge an unfair valuation. Some counties will be rewritten in depth; others are a starting point. All of them are a place to begin.
To remind Texans what Texas was built to be. The Republic was not built to be ruled. It was built to be a home for free people who acknowledged God, owned their land, and governed themselves through representatives who answered to them. That is the Texas worth keeping. That is the Texas worth passing to our children.
This site is built by Carrie Hagglund — a Texan, a Daughter of the Republic of Texas, and a descendant of Thomas J. Rusk, who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and served as the first Secretary of War of the Republic. This is a research and advocacy site. It is not a law firm. It is not a brokerage. It does not practice real estate services, give legal advice, or file protests on anyone’s behalf. It gathers, explains, and connects — and it argues, plainly, that Texans are being taxed out of their homes and that this is not what the founders intended.
If the site is useful to you, share it. If you see something that is wrong or missing, tell us. If you are in a position to help — as a property tax consultant, as a Realtor whose listings belong on a county page, as a Texan with a story — reach out.
The Republic belongs to the People. So does its future.
