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Mayoral Powers

El Paso officially utilizes a council-manager government type which is affiliated with weaker ceremonial mayors with few to no formal powers differentiating them from city council members. However, El Paso's charter bestows the mayor with several privileges associated with mayor-council and strong mayor systems. Accordingly, the mayor has the ability to veto any legislation put forward by the city council with the exception of measures seeking to remove the city manager or city attorney. Beyond this power Oscar Leeser possesses duties commonly held by mayors of both types those being the responsibility to act on the behalf of the city when dealing with the state and federal government, the ability to make yearly state of the city addresses, and break tie votes. Additionally, the mayor is able to appoint individuals to certain positions however, appointments to key posts, such as chief of police, are instead made by the city manager.

Curfew

In August of 2023 Mayor Oscar Leeser elected to perpetuate an 11 p.m. curfew for adolescents in public locations that has existed in El Paso in some capacity since 1991. This was accomplished by vetoing the unanimous decision of the city council to terminate the ordinance. The end of which was intended to align the city with House Bill 1819 a piece of state legislation that came into effect less than a month later on September 1st 2023, that abolished cities' and counties' ability to impose current or implement new curfews on their populace. Therefore, in spite of the veto, El Paso's local rules were overrode and in order to abide by state law the curfew ended. However, the mayor and other advocates of the curfew pledged to petition the state government, alongside the representatives of similarly minded municipalities, to reverse this mandate.