City of Keller promotes Gov. Greg Abbott campaign event on its social media site
The city of Keller generated lots of buzz on its social media sites this week with a post informing residents about a private event at a church where Gov. Greg Abbott will speak.
The Jan. 18 event is sponsored by the Keller Republican Club.
Some residents questioned if the post was legal while others said they were glad that Abbot is coming to speak in Keller.
Keller posted a notice about the event on its Facebook page and included a registration link for the event, which has since been removed. The post also included a notice that traffic could be affected and that the City Council meeting has been rescheduled to 2 p.m. because of Abbott’s visit.
Political subdivisions are prohibited from using resources to produce or distribute political advertising in connection with an election, according to the Texas Election Code.
City spokesperson Rachel Reynolds said Thursday morning that the city has posted about other political events previously, such as candidate forums. She declined to comment on whether the postings are legal.
“From our perspective, it’s standard operating procedure to communicate with our residents about a police presence that could impact them and to let them know that we moved the council meeting to an earlier time,” Reynolds said.
After the registration link was removed, Reynolds said the city’s attorney had indicated that the original post and its language was legal under state law as it remained factual and neutral.
“That said, staff has discussed the issue of perception further, and we decided to remove the registration link from our posts,” she wrote in a text message.
Some people criticized the city in comments on the Facebook page.
One resident wrote, “Will you be rescheduling for other partisan events or just Republican ones? Not an appropriate use of your Facebook page.”
Others welcomed Abbott’s visit to Keller.
“How awesome he is coming here,” someone posted. “I know a lot of people have moved here recently from democratic states. I just hope when you go to the voting polls that you will vote for the reasons you came here. Glad our state stayed open and he is against any closures!!”
This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 3:43 PM.