City Limits: What is ETJ Good For?

The State of Texas granted cities the power the regulate outside their corporate boundaries in a designated extra-territorial jurisdiction (“ETJ”) as part of the Municipal Annexation Reform Act of 1963. Under that framework, cities could regulate in the ETJ in anticipation of their future unilateral, forced annexation of the area, without gaining consent from residents. With the passage of the Texas Annexation Right to Vote Act in 2017, forced annexation no longer holds for much of the state. Given the new annexation paradigm, what is the proper scope of city power in the ETJ?